ProjectFlash
by marioandsonicFTW
Summary: Sonic and Tails discover a beta character in their game. However, this beta element of the game has a minor flaw: he's an incomplete character. Will Flash ever see life outside the game? And what's lurking within the code? Final Chapter is up: THE END
1. Chapter 1: The New Kid in-Game

The day was drawing to a close on Litwak's Family Fun Center and Mr. Litwak had just let out the last of his guests. He stretched from a long day, exited the building and locked up for the night. The games inside still ran idly as there was no one to play them. It seemed pretty empty inside the arcade. Suddenly, a dancer on the Dance Dance Revolution game stopped dancing and looked around as if looking out the screen.

"All clear!" She called.

New life began to spring in the arcade as game characters began chatting and left the visible view of their screens. In the Sonic the Hedgehog game, a blue hedgehog of the same name was dusting himself off after just clearing Tropical Resort.

"What a day." He thought.

Following behind him was his faithful, brotherly, best friend. A two-tailed fox by the name of Miles Prower, though he prefers being called "Tails".

"Nice job today, Sonic." He congratulated.

"Thanks, buddy. Wanna head down to Tappers?" Sonic asked.

"Sure. I also know a shortcut back to the space elevator."

"Okay. I'll let you lead then."

Tails began to fly off with Sonic following close behind. He cut through the many rides and buildings. The two were nearing the elevator back to the game's world below, where the portal to Game Central Station would be, until Tails saw something that caught his eye. He stopped and hovered in the air for a moment.

"Huh? I've never seen that before." He thought.

Sonic saw Tails descending over to a building that was smaller than all the others and a bit isolated from the others. It could have been a house, though it looked like it could only hold one room. Sonic followed Tails over to the tiny building.

"Have you ever seen this building before, Sonic?" Tails asked.

"I don't think so. It's pretty out of the way to run by." Sonic answered.

"Let's check it out."

Tails walked up to the door. On it was a familiar insignia.

"You know, that looks like the icon for the Cyan Lazer. You don't suppose the wisps live here, do you?" Sonic inquired.

"I doubt it. They seem pretty happy on Planet Wisp." Tails said.

The door was unlocked, so the duo entered the structure. Inside was a bedroom, but it wasn't like a hotel bedroom like most other rooms in the Resort. It looked like someone lived in it. Posters of Soap Shoes and the Chao in Space movies covered the walls, a TV rested on a dresser, and there was a shelf where knickknacks rested, ranging from Chao toys to a GUN truck to a spare pair of white linen gloves. Though the room looked lively, something about it felt...lifeless.

"What a room!" Sonic whistled.

"Wow. I wonder who lives in here." Tails thought out loud.

On the other end of the room was another door. It looked like a closet door.

Tails slowly inched closer to the door, turned the knob, and opened it. Inside was not a closet full of clothes but an expansive room of blocks floating in an empty, floor-less space, all of them connected by a network of wires. Tails was surprised and fell forward into the space.

"Who-oOAA!" He yelled.

"Tails!" Sonic shouted.

The fox thought he would be falling, but then realized that he was floating in a space without gravity.

"Are you okay, buddy?" Sonic called.

"Yeah! I'm fine!" He answered.

Tails looked around a second time. He saw many blocks marked with different names.

"Knuckles the Echidna...Casino Park...Special Stages..."

Tails figured out just where they were.

"Sonic, I think we found the game's Code Room."

"You mean the room that keeps charge of everyone and everything's code."

"Yeah. Let's get out of here."

Tails used his tails to maneuver himself to leave but then, from the corner of his eye, Tails saw a lone code block, isolated from the network. Curiosity overtook him.

"Hold up a sec, Sonic."

He floated over to the block.

"What's that?" Sonic asked from the door.

"I don't know." Tails responded.

Upon closer inspection, the code block was marked with a strange name.

"ProjectFlash"

Tails tapped the block's screen and on it appeared an image of a character model. It was a male hedgehog that looked similar to Sonic, except his fur was cyan in color, his shoes were cyan and blue, and he had fewer spines. An option appeared on screen.

"Activation...Continue or Cancel?"

"Hey Sonic! I found a new character!"

"Really? Who is it?"

"I don't know. A name doesn't come up here."

"Can you activate him?"

"Sure."

Tails selected "Continue" and the block began to light up. It moved closer to the network and green wires started attaching themselves to it. Tails floated back into the room and closed the door.

"Well? Where is he?" Sonic asked.

"He could appear anywhere in the game." Tails answered.

A bright light suddenly lit up the room and Sonic and Tails both shielded their eyes from the intensity. The light lasted for a few moments and then died down. In the room, standing in front of the two friends was the cyan hedgehog, flickering with cyan pixels and binary. The flickering stopped and the hedgehog opened his bright amber eyes.

"Hi there!" The hedgehog said cheerfully.

Sonic and Tails were both amazed by the new character.

"Cool..." Sonic said in awe.

"What are your names?" Asked the hedgehog.

"Oh! My name is Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog, and this is my buddy, Tails." Sonic introduced.

"What's your name?" Tails asked.

"Flash...the Hedgehog." He responded.

"Amazing! A new character for the game!"

"We just have to tell our friends about this." Sonic said excitedly.

"They might be down at Tappers." Tails said.

"What are...Tappers?" Flash asked.

"It's another game in the arcade. Come on. We'll show you around." Sonic said.

The trio left the room into the Tropical Resort, heading for the space elevator.

"Now you're probably wondering where we are..." Sonic began.

"I know where we are." Flash informed.

"You do?" Sonic and Tails said in unison.

"Yeah. We're in Tropical Resort: The first playable area in Sonic Colors and in Dr. Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park."

"How did you know that?" Tails asked.

"I...don't know." Flash said, scratching his head.

He also flickered into cyan pixels for a short moment. For him, it felt like being broken apart and put back together.

"Wh-Whoa..." He stumbled. "That...was weird."

"Are you okay, Flash?" Sonic inquired.

"Yeah. I'll be fine. Let's go."

Sonic brushed it off as nothing, but Tails was still suspicious. The three entered the elevator and began their descent to the world below. Tails had to sit down because his head started spinning from the elevator's acceleration.

"So Flash, what's your story?" Sonic asked.

"My what?" Flash was confused.

"You know. Your backstory."

"Uh...I don't think I have one."

"That's crazy. Everyone in this game is programmed with a backstory." Tails informed.

"Yeah, like me. I am a hedgehog that can move at the speed of sound and I always stop Dr. Eggman from taking over the world or whatever."

"Or me. I'm a fox born with two tails. Other animals made fun of me because I was different, but I met Sonic and we've been best friends ever since."

"Uh...I still can't think of anything like that." Flash said, flickering again.

"You did it again." Said Tails.

"What...is this?" Flash wondered.

"Don't worry about it. You probably just have Pixlexia and your code is getting settled into the game." Sonic assured. "What I wonder is why you weren't in the game to begin with." Sonic said.

The thought left all three in an awkward silence for the rest of the ride down. As the elevator reached the ground, Flash looked around at the expansive world that is his home. He, Sonic, and Tails got out and started walking to Green Hill Zone, where the portal is.

"Flash, how fast are you?" Sonic asked.

"Pretty fast." He answered.

"How about a race to the portal?"

"Sure, but I don't know where it is."

"Tails can fly ahead of us. Just follow him."

"Okay. You're on."

"I'll fly on ahead." Tails said.

After giving Tails a few seconds for a head start...

"Ready...Set...GO!" Sonic shouted.

They were off. Sonic was holding a slight lead and Flash was tailing him. Both of them were nearing a sharp corner in the path. Sonic ran through the corner and lost a bit of speed. Flash curled up to drift around and past Sonic.

"Not bad!" Sonic called out to Flash.

"Thanks!"

"Now watch this!"

Sonic boosted and zipped past Flash, leaving him behind. Flash was excited about the challenge and used his own boost, White Boost. He accelerated at an amazing rate and quickly caught up with Sonic.

"You're pretty fast." Sonic admitted.

Up ahead was Tails, right next to the portal.

"Here's the final stretch!" Flash said.

Both were neck in neck as they were nearing the finish. Flash could feel his heart racing in excitement. He suddenly broke apart into cyan binary and inched forward ahead of Sonic as they finished.

"I won!" Flash whooped in triumph.

"That was pretty good, but how did you do that?" Sonic asked.

"What?"

"You teleported or something to get a bit ahead."

"I don't have that kind of power."

Sonic thought for a moment.

"Are you a glitch?"

"Huh? No! I'm not a glitch!" Flash bursted.

"Okay. Okay. Don't worry. We're not going to judge you."

"Come on guys! Let's hurry up!" Tails shouted from the portal. "I hear Tappers has a special on chili dogs!"

"Then what the heck are we waiting around for!" Sonic jumped for joy by the sound of those words. "Get the lead out of your shoes, Flash!"

"A-Alright." He said sort of nervously.

Tails saved both hedgehogs a seat on the monorail out of the game. The three ventured through the portal and neared Game Central Station.

"What is wrong with me?" Flash thought.


	2. Chapter 2: Filthy Glitch

"Welcome to Game Central Station." Said a voice on the PA system.

The monorail coming from the Sonic the Hedgehog game was coming to a stop at the station. Sonic, Tails, and Flash jumped off and walked out into the central hub. A buzzer buzzed and a glowing blue man in a blue shirt and tie suddenly appeared next to the three.

"Please step aside. Random security check." He said.

"Oh, great." Tails face palmed.

"Names?" The man asked.

"Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Miles Prower.

"Uh...Flash the Hedgehog."

"And where are you three coming from?"

"Sonic the Hedgehog." Sonic said.

"Are any of you carrying any rings? Chaos Emeralds? Speed shoes?"

"Just a few rings for protection." Tails noted.

"And where are you headed?"

"Tappers." Sonic and Tails said in unison.

"Any comments?"

"None."

"Proceed."

The man turned into a small blue spark and zipped away. Flash had a chance to actually look around.

"Wow..." Flash said in amazement.

"Yeah, it's a pretty cool place." Sonic said.

Everywhere Flash looked, there were game characters from all around the arcade. Inky, Blinky, and Pinky were floating around in a line, Frogger was hopping happily along, and Q*bert was just leaving his game of the same name, which was right next to Sonic's game.

"Hey, Q*bert!" Sonic greeted.

" $?&!" He responded.

"How you doing?"

" &?!#*%&$#? $&$!"

"That's great! Well, catch you later!"

"?!%#&$"

The trio began walking off to Tappers. Flash walked up next to Sonic.

"You can understand that guy?" He asked.

"Nope, but it's nice to be neighborly."

Flash chuckled.

The three were walking across the station when an announcement came up. Sonic appeared on a cylindrical screen.

"If you leave your game, stay safe, stay alert, and whatever you do, don't die, because if you die outside your own game, you won't regenerate, ever. GAME OVER."

"Always remember that, Flash." Sonic said. "Oh! And also..." He pulled out a few rings. "Always carry some rings with you. I mean, you never know, right?"

"Thanks."

They entered the portal to Tappers and rode the train into the game. The train led up to a tall, red-bricked structure with a bright neon sign saying "Tappers".

"Let's go. Chili dogs on me." Sonic said.

Upon walking through the door, Sonic was greeted by a crowd of characters.

"SONIC!" Everyone shouted.

"Hey guys! How's it going?"

The bar consisted of four parallel bars. The walls were decorated with posters for games and sketches of many characters. A red-furred echidna walked up to Sonic.

"It's about time you showed up." He chuckled.

"It's nice to see you too, Knucklehead."

Flash walked in behind Tails.

"Who's that?" Knuckles asked.

"Long story short, we found him deactivated in the Code Room of the game, so we activated him. His name's Flash."

"Nice to meet you." Flash said.

"Cool. A new face in the game."

"Sonic! Flash!" Tails called. He had saved two seats on the bar.

Sonic ran up and sat on the seat to the right of Tails. Flash sat to the right of Sonic. The bartender came up to their side of the bar.

"Hey Sonic! What'll it be today?"

"Hey Barry! Three chili dogs with everything on 'em."

"Coming right up."

"So Sonic, who can players play as in your game?" Flash asked.

"You mean our game, Flash. You're one of us now. And, to answer you question, players can play as a whole list of characters. Me, of course, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, the list goes on."

"Wow. I'm looking forward to tomorrow."

"It'll be fun." Tails said.

Barry came back with three chili dogs.

"Thanks, Barry!" Sonic tossed him three rings.

"Anytime."

"Time to dig in." Tails announced.

The three began to chow down on their chili dogs. Flash's dog was the most delicious thing he had ever eaten, mostly because it is the only thing he had ever eaten. The three friends had finished and Sonic got curious about something.

"Hey Flash."

"Yeah?"

"I forgot to ask. What powers or abilities do you have? I know you can drift and boost. What else can you do?"

Flash thought for a moment.

"I can generate Hyper-go-ons in my body and use White Boost and the Cyan Lazer at any time without absorbing a wisp. Also I can shoot lasers from my hands."

"Sounds like you belong in the Colors part of the game." Sonic said.

"Now we have to figure out a place for you to stay in." Tails thought out loud.

"I already have a place to stay."

"You do?" Sonic asked.

"Yeah. The room where we left is my room." Flash explained.

"Strange. It was already set up for you, but you were inactive."

"Yeah, and why were you inactive in the first place?" Sonic wondered.

They're thoughts were interrupted when a pink hedgehog snuck up behind Flash.

"I've got you now, Sonic!"

The pink hedgehog grabbed him.

"Whoa! Hey!" Flash exclaimed.

"Thought you could hide from me?"

"Amy! That's not Sonic!" Tails shouted.

"I'm right here, Amy." Sonic waved.

Flash crackled into code and phased through Amy's arms.

"Okay, there is no way that that was just minor Pixlexia." Thought Tails.

Amy got a good look at Flash then looked back at Sonic.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! You just look a lot like Sonic!" Amy cried, oblivious to the fact that Flash phased through her.

"That's okay. My name is Flash. Nice to meet you." He smiled and held out his hand for a shake.

"Oh! Well, aren't you a gentleman! I'm Amy. Amy Rose." Amy shook his hand. "Sonic! Why can't you be more like your friend here!" She complained.

Sonic slapped his forehead.

"Hey, I've never seen you around in our game." Amy said.

"That's because Sonic and Tails activated my code. I have them to thank for being here."

"Ooh! What can you do in the game?"

"I can turn into a living laser."

"That is amazing! Can you show me?"

"Well..." Flash thought for a second. "Sure. Why not?"

"Great! Everyone!" She announced to the entire bar. "Our new friend and new playable character in our game will be demonstrating his cool power."

Flash chuckled nervously and waved to the people watching.

"Okay." Flash thought.

LAZER!

Flash transformed into a ball of pure cyan light and blasted around the entire bar at the speed of light, bouncing off the walls, floor, and ceiling. Everyone applauded at the display. Then, Flash felt something inside himself emerging. A burning pain that reached deep into his code. He started fizzling into cyan static and then lost control of himself. He began smashing through glasses and knocked down frames from the wall. Everyone began to scream, yell, and panic and took cover on the floor.

"FLASH!" Sonic yelled. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"

"I...100101...I can't contr0l it!...001101" he babbled.

"What!?"

Chaos erupted and Flash fizzled out of his lazer form. He flew across the room ramming into a large turtle with red hair, spikes on his shell, and black arm bands. Both fell over on the floor. The other characters began to calm down, except for one. The turtle Flash flew on top of was the infamous Koopa King, Bowser and he was far from calm.

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF MIYAMOTO WAS THAT!" He roared.

"0100...I-I'm $orry...I c0uldn't...001...c0ntrol..." Flash tried to speak as his body was a complete mess of static and binary.

"GET OFF OF ME!"

Bowser shoved Flash off of him.

"I don't know who you are or how you got out of your game, but YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE OR ANYWHERE IN THIS ARCADE! FILTHY GLITCH!"

Everyone gasped.

"...G-Glitch?..."

Flash looked at himself and saw that he was not even solid. His body fizzled with cyan pixels. He was glitching.

"Hey! That kid is a glitch!" Someone shouted.

"How did he get out of his game?" Someone else said.

Soon everyone except Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles was murmuring.

"Go back to your game!" Another character shouted, throwing a glass at Flash.

It phased through Flash, but he felt a huge pit in his heart. Others started shouting and throwing things at him. Flash became solid and the thrown objects began to hurt him.

"Ow! 01...0w!"

Flash stumbled to his feet and ran out of the bar.

"Flash! Come back!"

"Don't ever come back here! Dirty piece of code." Bowser called.

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy ran out after Flash. Flash had just climbed onto the train which had left by the time the others got there. Flash was feeling totally miserable.

"_I'm a...glitch_." He thought as tears welled up in his eyes.

"_Everyone hates you..._" Said a small voice in his head

His train arrived and he ran out into the station. Another buzzer sounded and the surge protector appeared.

"Excuse me." He said, looking at his clipboard.

Flash was startled and glitched.

"Leave me alone...0111!" Flash shouted, running toward his game.

"Hey! Wait!" Called the surge protector.

Flash ran into another character and knocked him over. He was a handy man dressed in a blue shirt and jeans with a blue cap on his head and a tool belt around his waist. His name tag said "Felix".

"Oh, jiminy jaminy. Are you okay?" He asked.

Flash didn't answer. He quickly got up and glitched as he ran back to the game. The handy man saw this and was astonished.

"Oh my land."

Flash almost tripped as he ran onto the monorail back. At the same time, Sonic and the others were just arriving to the station.

"Where did he go?" Tails asked as they got off.

They ran out and the surge protector appeared next to them.

"Are you all with that cyan hedgehog?" He asked.

"You saw him? Where did he run off?" Sonic asked.

"He ran off to your game."

"Thanks."

The handy man noticed the quartet coming.

"Hi Sonic! Are you friends with the other hedgehog that passed by?"

"Yes. Sorry, Felix. Can't talk." Sonic said, about to continue running.

"Maybe I can help?" He offered.

"If you think you can, then come on."

Felix followed Sonic and the others to the game.

Flash got off the monorail and entered Green Hill Zone. He ran as fast as he could back to the space elevator to get home.

"_Why am I like this? Why am I a glitch_?" These questions repeated in his head over and over. "_Why does everyone hate me?_"

"_You're different...You're not a character..._" Said the head voice.

The elevator appeared in the distance and Flash decided to use his power to get there faster.

LazER...10011...!

Flash felt the pain again as he transformed. The burning was so intense that he felt like he would break apart into pure code. He sped toward the elevator and after a few seconds, spiraled to the ground.

"...101001...Ugh..." He groaned.

Cyan pixels crackled while Flash couldn't move. He was too weak to stand.

"_...Filthy glitch..._" The voice said.

He passed out.

* * *

Sonic and friends along with Felix had arrived in Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic and Tails had just explained to Felix what had happened with Flash.

"Well, he sounds like a glitch, but what I don't get is how he is able to leave the game." Felix wondered.

"We better find him before he does any damage to himself or someone else." Tails said.

"Oh, I hope he isn't hurt too bad about what Bowser called him." Amy said, concerned.

"But where could he be in this huge world?" Felix asked.

"He might have gone back to Tropical Resort to get to his room." Sonic said.

The group hurried to the elevator when they saw something off in the distance.

"Oh no..." Sonic thought.

"Flash!" Tails shouted.

"Oh my gosh!" Amy gasped.

They found Flash lying on the ground, unconscious, glitching slightly every few seconds.

"We've got to get him to his room." Said Knuckles.

"Help me pick him up." Sonic ordered.

Sonic grabbed Flash's arm and put it around his shoulder. Knuckles did the same with the other arm. They carried him to the elevator and began the long ascent.

"...glitch..." Flash mumbled.

**A/N: For those of you who are wondering what kind of Sonic game that the arcade has, it's a game that combines all the major Sonic games like Colors, Adventures 1 and 2, and so on. Ridiculous I know, but it works for the story. Please review :)**


	3. Chapter 3: Incomplete

_"...You're a glitch...No one likes you...worthless piece of code..."_

_"No! Leave me alone!"_

_ "...Get back at them...Show them who's worthless..."_

_"Stop! STOP!"_

_"Flash, wake up. Wake up."_

* * *

Flash jolted awake. He was in his bed back in his room. Around him on his bedside was Sonic, Tails, Amy, Knuckles and Felix, who Flash ran into at the station.

"You had us worried, buddy." Sonic said softly.

"What happened?" Flash asked.

"You tell us. We followed you after you ran off and we found you knocked out on the way to the elevator." Knuckles explained.

Flash then remembered the events that had occurred earlier. Accidentally knocking Bowser over, being ridiculed for being a glitch, running away, and then...

"I don't know...I turned into a laser and then I felt something hurt, like a really bad burning feeling and I lost control. That was what happened back at Tappers too." Flash described.

"Wow. That's some story." Tails said.

Flash looked down at himself. He was normal. No pixels. No glitching. Nothing. But he knew that somewhere within his code was something. Something that made him like this. He began to tear up.

"...Why?" He whispered.

"Huh?" Sonic could barely hear what Flash said.

Flash began to flicker intensely.

"WHY!? 011101...WHY...101...AM I...000...LIKE THI$!?" He yelled, cyan sparks burning bright as he spoke.

"We don't understand either, Flash. Just take it easy." Sonic tried to calm him.

Tears fell down Flash's face.

"...I...010...I ju$t...want t0 kn0w...11..." He sniffed, his glitch dying down.

"I think I can help." Felix said.

"...Really?"

"Sure. Sonic, you said that the Code Room is in this closet, right?" Felix gestured to the closet door.

"Yeah?"

"Well, being a handyman, I happen to know a few things about coding. I might be able to find what's wrong." He boasted.

Flash's mood lightened up a little. He smiled.

"Let's have a look-see, shall we." Felix cheerfully announced with a cheeky grin.

He opened the door and revealed the Code Room, code and all. He jumped out into the zero gravity space and looked around the entire network of blocks and wires.

"Which one is Flash's?" Felix asked.

"I think it's the one that says 'ProjectFlash'." Tails said.

After a few moments of floating and searching, Felix finds Flash's code block. It looked a little worn down since the last time it was seen. Every once in a while, it would let sparks fly and the green glowing wires it was attached to were glowing very dimly.

"Found it!"

Felix pressed the block and on screen appeared binary code that defined Flash's programming. Felix, being a programming veteran, was able to read it.

"Everything here seems normal." He said as he scrolled through. "Basic physics...textures...Two textures?...abilities...huh?"

On the screen, it showed that this aspect of Flash's coding was only partially programmed. It wasn't finished.

"That's strange..."

Felix continued scrolling.

"Backstory...same thing...personality...impossible. Two personalities? This makes no sense."

"What does it look like, Felix?" Amy asked.

"It's very weird. I've never seen anything like this before." He answered.

To Flash, those news spelled trouble for him. His mood had dropped from optimistic to hopeless.

Felix had closed the window on the screen and floated back into the bedroom.

"You said Flash was deactivated since the game was plugged in?" Felix asked.

"As far as we know, yes. We've never seen him in the game before." Tails explained.

Felix pondered for a minute before coming to a conclusion.

"Okay, I've come up with good news and bad news." He announced.

"Tell us the good news first." Amy said.

"The good news is that Flash is not a glitch."

Flash felt like huge load on his code was lifted. He felt so gleeful that he wanted to jump off of the walls.

"You might want to sit down for this, though."

Flash had a feeling that the worst was yet to come.

"The bad news, however, is that...Flash,...you're not a real character."

"WHAT!?" All five said together.

Flash felt his heart almost skip a beat.

"Wh-What do you mean?" He asked.

"You weren't meant to be in the game in the first place. At least, not the final version of this game. From what I could read from your code, you're actually a beta character, left in the game's code. You were probably...scrapped at the last moment."

Flash was at a loss for words. Being scrapped is the worst thing to happen to any character. He was scrapped by his own developers, unwanted. He flickered for a moment.

"What about...this!?" He asked, referring to his glitching.

"This is gonna be hard to tell you." Felix mumbled. "Before you were...you know, you might have been in the middle of being programmed, but when you were...your programming wasn't finished. Flash...you're an incomplete character."

"...I-Inc0mplete? 0110..." He choked.

Tears began to fall again as he buried his face in his pillow and cyan binary washed over him.

"Can't you do anything to fix it?" Tails asked.

"I'm sorry, but I can't complete his code without formatting it completely. I just think he's lucky that his programming hasn't crashed with all that has happened."

Flash was devastated. He was not only unwanted. He was incomplete with an unfinished code.

"...Plea$e...011...I want t0...be al0ne...110..." He sobbed.

"Okay, Flash. We'll be back later to check on you, alright?" Sonic said.

Flash nodded in response.

Everyone left the room, feeling sorry for him.

"...You see?...You're no character...You're a freak..."

Flash turned off the light in his room and cried himself to sleep.

* * *

The others were walking toward the space elevator.

"Poor kid." Said Knuckles.

"I hope he feels better." Amy said.

"Thanks for the help, Felix." Sonic thanked.

"I just wish there was something more I could do. He really is a good character."

"You better go home. We'll find you if we need you. Want us to take you?"

"No, thanks. I know my way back."

"Okay. Thanks again, Felix."

"Anytime, Sonic."

They had reached the elevator and Felix had gotten onboard. Sonic and the others watched as Felix rode back to the world below.

"Do you think thing will get better for Flash?" Tails asked.

"I hope so, Tails." Sonic stated.

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who's reading! Leave a review and see you next chapter.**


	4. Chapter 4: Some Getting Used To

Flash slept pretty soundly that night. The next morning, he woke up about half an hour before the arcade opens. He yawned and sat up in his bed. Flash was still feeling a bit down about what he learned the night before. Clearly, he would not be able to be played as because of his incomplete programming.

Suddenly, there was knocking on his bedroom door.

"Flash? It's Sonic. Can I come in?"

"Sure. Door's open."

Sonic entered the room and Flash got up and out of bed.

"How you doing?" Sonic asked.

"Better."

"Listen. I talked to Felix not long ago and he wanted me to tell you about your power."

"What about it?"

"Well, since your programming is...not 100% right now, you should not use the Cyan Lazer at all. See, if you do use it, it could really mess with your code and you could crash."

Flash felt his mood diminish even lower than it already was. He can't even use his own powers that he was coded with at least partially. Without that, he was just a recolor of Sonic. However, despite his feelings toward this, he understood.

"I got it, Sonic." He said, acting like it was okay.

"Tell you what. After the arcade closes, we'll go out and maybe go back to Tappers and..."

"No!" He said, abruptly.

Sonic flinched in surprise. He didn't expect such a reaction. Flash himself was surprised by his sudden outburst. The thing is that he didn't want to leave the game. The last thing he wanted was to be picked on like yesterday.

"Sorry. It's just that...I'm not ready to leave the game again." Flash explained.

"That's alright. Maybe sometime soon."

Sonic left for the door and before leaving he left Flash some assuring words.

"Don't worry, Flash. Things will get better."

_"I hope your right, Sonic."_ He thought.

After sometime, the arcade opened and some players started with Sonic the Hedgehog. During this time, Flash remained in his room, out of sight from the players. He turned on his TV, which actually gave him a view of the player's screen. He saw that the player had selected Sonic and selected to go through Rooftop Run. Flash could only watch as Sonic sped through obstacles, destroyed robots, and reached the goal ring at breakneck speeds. He longed to be out in the game being played as just like everyone else.

_"...You'll never be like them..."_

The voice seemed a bit clearer than before, but Flash disregarded it as one of his own thoughts. He glitched every so often while watching the others. Noticing this, he spent some time experimenting, figuring out what causes him to glitch. His attempts were less than successful because he wouldn't glitch when he wanted to and he would flicker at random moments. He practiced all throughout the day until the arcade finally closed. He turned off the TV and burst out of the door.

* * *

_Tropical Resort Act 1_

He began to stretch his legs and took a "Ready" stance.

"Here we...GO!" He said to himself.

Flash took off at near the speed of sound and followed along a pretty straightforward path. He passed by some white wisps in a capsule. He didn't need them since he had limitless white energy. He boosted away as he came upon a spring to a higher platform. He jumped up and found three robots just standing around. He boosted right through them and homing attacked across a chain of Spinners and another Pawn. He found a rail and started grinding on it. At the end was a capsule for a cyan wisp and a horde of Pawns. Flash screeched to a halt and was reminded about how he can't use his Lazer power. He sighed and began walking back to his room, flickering binary as he sulked.

_"Who am I kidding?"_ Flash thought. _"I'll never be able to be played as."_

Flash returned to his room and found that Sonic and Tails were waiting for him.

"Hey guys." He greeted.

"Flash! Where have you been?" Tails asked.

"Just went out for a short run to stretch my legs."

"We just wanted to know how you were doing." Sonic said.

"I'm fine. Really. I just have to get used to living like this."

"You wanna go down to Green Hill and just relax?"

"...I'm fine here." Flash said, not wanting to venture farther than Tropical Resort.

"Look, Flash, I know you're scared, but you don't have to hide from the arcade."

"Do you know any other glitches or beta characters? Because I don't think you know what it's like." He said in a rude tone.

Sonic didn't expect such a negative reaction.

"Sorry, Sonic, but I think I'll let some time pass before I leave the game again."

"Alright...If you really think so. C'mon, Tails."

"Later, Flash." Tails said.

"Bye."

Flash walked back into his room. The next few days were practically the same. Flash would stay out of sight in his room and practice controlling his glitching and when the day would end, Sonic and the others would want him to follow them out of the game. Each time, he would decline and just run around the Resort thinking about what he would be like if he was completed. Every so often, a small voice in his head would have him thinking about negative thoughts, but he would always get over it.

A month passed and not much changed, except for Flash having better control on his glitching. He wouldn't glitch as often and he could teleport a few feet away. He also worked up the courage to leave the Resort to see the other areas of the Sonic Colors part of the game. Within two weeks, he would see the rest of the game. Flash was feeling more confident, but he still wouldn't leave the game. He felt like something would hold him back.

_"...Why bother?...They will never change..."_


	5. Chapter 5: Happy Birthday!

_11 months later... _

* * *

"All clear!" Announced the DDR dancer to the arcade.

Within Sonic the Hedgehog, Flash was walking around Starlight Carnival. He was able to hear from the game and bursted with excitement.

"About time!"

He ran off and got on the Egg Shuttle back to Tropical Resort. He was so excited, he couldn't sit still.

"C'mon! C'mon!" Flash said, impatiently.

As soon as the shuttle docked, he sped out the door and ran down to the space elevator. Upon reaching the ground, he boosted toward City Escape. When he nearly got there, he met up with Sonic.

"Sonic! Ready to go?"

"Hey, Flash! You bet!"

The two ran and made it to the top of the highest hill in the stage. There were two metal boards waiting for them, one white and one blue. Flash got the white board and Sonic got the blue one. Both hedgehogs stationed themselves at the top of the hill.

"3...2...1...GO!" The two shouted.

Sonic and Flash were speeding down the hill, racing toward the bottom.

_Flash had gotten used to the life he had as a beta character. Of course, he couldn't be played as, but after many weeks of practicing, he was able to keep his glitch under control. He would only glitch on rare occasions during the day and even then it was only a flicker. Because of this, Flash was able to cameo on stages randomly so that he wouldn't have to be stuck in his room all day. He would sometimes run along for a few seconds with whoever was playing or appear in the background or on the sidelines. It wasn't much of a role, but he was grateful to be out and about. Though there were sometimes that Flash would wish that he could do what he was programmed...well, partially programmed...to do, transform into a laser and speed through the stage at the speed of light. It didn't bother him that much though._

Sonic was way in the lead, nearing the bottom of the hill. Flash was trailing behind, but hopped onto a rail that led to a trick ramp. He jumped so high that he could have been flying. He landed in front of Sonic and boosted ahead to the end. He flipped off of his board and carried it under his arm. Sonic came a second later.

"Nice race, Flash. Another point for you."

"Thanks. That's 18 for me. 20 for you."

"Hey. Wanna come over to Green Hill and just hang out?

"Sure. Why not?"

Sonic and Flash began their jog over. Along the way, Flash thought about how it's been a year since he was activated. It seemed like it was so long ago. A lot has happened and his life now seems so ordinary compared to how new and different it was. He was lucky enough to have friends like Sonic and Tails to help him out even though he was...incomplete. Sonic ran ahead of Flash for some reason and Flash tried to keep up, but he wasn't coded to be as fast as him.

"Hey Sonic! Wait up!" He called.

Flash pursued him as fast as he could until, eventually, Sonic stopped at what looked like a picnic table. At the table, along with Sonic, was Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Cheese, Shadow, Silver, Blaze, the Chaotix, Fix-it Felix, and three strangers. One extremely large guy with huge hands and feet and crazy brown hair wearing brown overalls with only one strap buttoned and a red-orange shirt. Another was a small girl, maybe eight or nine years old, with black hair that had what looked like sprinkles. She was wearing a turquoise hoodie and a brown skirt. The last one was a tall woman with short blonde hair wearing black armor. Everyone was huddled together around the table.

"Hey everyone! What's going on?" Flash greeted as he decelerated to walking speed.

"SURPRISE!" Everyone, aside from Shadow, shouted gleefully.

They shot party poppers and revealed the table was filled, end to end, with a variety of foods, ranging from chili dogs to cookies and cupcakes. In the middle of the table was a cyan and white cake decorated with the Cyan Lazer insignia and a single phrase: "Happy Birthday, Flash!"

"W0w...011!" Flash said in shock as he glitched about two feet away from where he was standing. "What's all this?" He asked after controlling himself.

"It's a birthday party for you!" Tails explained.

"This is for me?"

"Of course. A year ago today, we activated you. So why not have a party for a great friend." Sonic said.

"Aww, you guys. Thanks."

The party was at full swing when Felix walked up to Flash, followed by the three strangers.

"Happy Birthday, Flash!"

"Thank you, Felix."

"I've been meaning to introduce you to my friends for awhile now, but I haven't had a chance until now. This is Ralph." He said, gesturing to the big guy.

"Hi!" Ralph greeted.

"This is Vanellope." Felix pointed to the small girl.

"*ahem* President Vanellope Von Schweetz."

"And finally, my wife, Sergeant Tamora Calhoun."

"Hey there."

"N-Nice to...meet you..." Flash said, timidly. He was scared that he would be judged like back at Tappers a year ago.

"So Flash," Vanellope said. "Felix tells me that you can glitch."

Flash frowned and turned away.

"I-I don't want to...talk about it."

"Hey. Hey. It's okay."

In a flurry of blue sparks, Vanellope teleported in front of Flash.

"I can glitch too."

"Wh-Whoa! You're a glitch?"

"Yeah. I'm a glitch and I'm the main character of my own game."

"Wow! That's so cool! How's that possible?"

"Long story. Also, I know about how you can't use the powers that you have. It must be hard."

"It's okay. I like what I already got."

"Flash, I know we just met and this might be a little crazy..."

"You're not giving me your phone number, are you?"

"No! Nothing like that, but I have a proposition. Sonic told me about how you haven't been out of this game for a year."

"Where are you going with this?"

Listen, Sneakers, Sonic wants to help you get out of here and see the arcade." Ralph said. "A lot has changed the past year, you know, and trust me, people weren't the same as they used to be. So do you want to see what's out there?"

"I-I don't know."

"You're not going alone. You'll have me and Ralph along for the ride." Vanellope said. "And if you don't want to, that's fine."

Flash thought for a moment. Though he was scared, he felt like he could trust Vanellope and Ralph. After all, they were friends of Felix and he was really nice guy. And maybe the arcade did change, but would he brave enough to see for himself?

"Alright. I'll go." Flash decided.

"Excellent! Now come on!" She grabbed Flash and began dragging him to the exit.

"Wh-What? Now?"

"Of course. What did you expect? Now come on!"

"Wait up guys!" Ralph called as he was following behind."

"Ralph! Get the molasses out of your pants! We've got a lot to see!"

Vanellope pulled Flash by his arm and brought him to the monorail to Game Central Station. It's been awhile since Flash saw this portal. Just looking at it reminded him of what he felt when he was ridiculed. It sent shivers down his spine.

Ralph finally caught up with the two and climbed onto the monorail.

"Kid...can't you wait...for two seconds?" He asked, out of breath.

"Sorry, Ralph, but we don't have much time until the arcade opens."

Sonic managed to catch up with them before they left.

"We'll see you guys back here soon, okay!?"

"Yeah! And don't worry! We'll bring Flash back safe and sound." Shouted Ralph.

The monorail began to disembark and soon they disappeared into the portal.

_"Here we go again."_ Flash thought.

* * *

**A/N: I'm going on a trip for the weekend and I won't be able to write until next week, but be patient with me. Review and all that jazz. See ya!**


	6. Chapter 6: Game Jumping

_"...No one will ever like you...Why bother trying?..."_

Flash was silent as the monorail had reached its destination, the central hub of Game Central Station. He was having a constant battle with his own thoughts, not sure whether to be excited or worried. He hoped endlessly that things would be alright and no one would judge him. The vehicle came to a stop and Flash, Ralph, and Vanellope had hopped off.

"Welcome to Game Central Station." Said the same voice on the PA.

"Didn't think I would hear that again." Flash chuckled, with low expectations.

Vanellope grabbed Flash's hand and pulled him out into the open. Everywhere, characters walked and conversed with each other, just like a year ago. The sounds of 8-bit padding and chatter filled the air.

"C'mon, Flash! You're gonna love it out here!"

"Hold up, Vanellope!" Ralph called, trailing. "We don't even know where to go first."

"$&!?%#!$#!" A garbled electronic sound that sounded like speech was heard.

Coming from Fix-It Felix Jr. was a familiar face to Flash. A small orange ball with feet, two eyes, and an elephant-like snout walked toward the three.

"Hey Q*bert." Ralph greeted.

"?&$!%%!" He responded cheerfully.

"Hey! It's you!" Flash said.

"You know him, Flash?" Vanellope asked.

"Yeah. I met him a year ago on my first time out here. So how are things going at your game?"

Q*bert gave a sad look to Flash, as if something happened. Flash didn't understand why. Ralph shared the same look.

"What's wrong?"

"Uh...Flash, Q*bert's game was unplugged a few months after you saw him." Vanellope said.

"Oh...I'm sorry to hear that."

"&?!%$!" Q*bert said with a happier expression.

"You don't have to. We took him and his friends in and gave them a home in my game. They help out in the bonus levels."

"Really? That's great to hear."

"?!$*%*?!"

"Well, we'll see you later, buddy." Ralph said to Q*bert.

"Bye." Flash said.

"$&?!"

The trio walked off, saying goodbye. Flash was happy to know that there were some people like Ralph and Felix to help out abandoned characters like Q*bert. _"If only more people were like that."_ He thought.

"Ralph! I know where we can go first!" Vanellope said excitedly, while hopping up and down. "Let's go to Pac-Man. We can play hide and seek in the maze."

"Okay. Let's go."

Vanellope briskly paced over to the Pac-Man train, with Flash and Ralph following.

"First stop, Pac-Man!" Vanellope whooped.

All three got on the train and after a quick ride, they got off at the Pac-Man Station and entered into the dark maze, illuminated only by the blue light shining on the top of the walls.

"This game is a lot simpler than yours, Flash, so don't expect too much." Vanellope said.

Flash looked around in the maze and was amazed by how different it was to his own game.

"This place is unbelievable." He said.

"First time I heard that about our game." Said a voice.

Flash was startled and turned to look behind him. He saw a small orange ghost, floating in front of him.

"Hi. My name is Clyde." The ghost greeted cheerfully.

"...Uh...Hi..." Flash hesitated to say.

"Hey, Clyde." Ralph greeted.

"Hey, Ralph. Bad-Anon Meeting on Wednesday, and tell Zombie he left his hatchet here."

"Alright. Do you mind if we play in here? Vanellope wants to help out our hedgehog friend, Flash."

"No problem. I'm just gonna head out to find Inky, Blinky, and Pinky. Luigi is having a haunted mansion party tonight. Anyone can come in."

"That's cool. We'll see you there then."

Clyde had exited back to the station, leaving Flash, Vanellope, and Ralph alone in the game.

"Alright, I'll be it first, you two can go and hide." Ralph said.

He covered his eyes and faced the wall to begin counting.

"1...2..."

"Follow me, Flash!" Vanellope said as she dragged him with her.

"Whoa!"

Vanellope and Flash ran around, turning corners, trying to get as far away from Ralph as possible.

"5...6...7..."

"Stay quiet and step lightly. We don't want him to hear us."

"Okay."

"10!"

Flash and Vanellope snuck around the dark maze, keeping a low profile. Surprisingly, Ralph was also light on his feet for a big guy. Flash felt sort of excited. He felt like this is what he would feel if he was actually played as, like if he was on an adventure. The two walked through the corridors making occasional turns. Still no sign of Ralph.

"Where is he?" Vanellope whispered.

They were nearing a corner and Ralph jumped out, rushing to grab them.

"Gotcha!"

"AAH!" Both of them yelled.

They turned around to try and get away from Ralph. Flash and Vanellope began laughing as they ran. Flash was actually having fun, something that he doesn't experience very often. In the excitement, he crackled into cyan binary and teleported against the wall. He tripped after running his foot on the wall and fell over.

"0w...01"

Vanellope stopped and ran back to help Flash. Ralph stopped and knelt down next to them.

"Hey, Sneakers, you okay?" Vanellope asked.

Flash rubbed his head and dusted himself off as he got up.

"I'm fine. Just lost control of myself there. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to glitch again." He responded.

"You know, Flash, you can't stop yourself from glitching." Vanellope said.

"Yeah, well, what can I do?" He said, down on himself.

"Do what I do." Vanellope sparked blue for a second then disappeared. "Use it to your advantage." She said behind Flash.

"Whoa! How did you do that?"

"I taught myself how. It's not too hard."

"Do you think you could...teach me how to do that?" Flash asked timidly.

"Of course. Let's go over to my game. We'll have more room over there."

"Alright."

"C'mon, Stinkbrain. We've got some glitchin' to do."

The trio made their way onto the train back to Game Central. During the ride, Flash became curious.

"Vanellope?"

"Yeah, Sneakers?"

"How is it that you are a main character in your game while you're also a...glitch?"

"Long story short, I wasn't always a glitch. This guy named Turbo wanted to take over my game, so he tried to delete my code. Major Body Odor here came along and helped me reset the game so that I could be in the game again, but I decided to keep the glitching." Vanellope explained

"Wow. That's quite a story." Flash remarked, impressed.

_"...Freak..."_

"What?" Flash asked

"What is it, Flash?" Ralph wondered.

"Did you hear something?"

"No."

"I thought I heard a voice."

"Maybe it was just in your head." Vanellope suggested.

"Yeah, maybe you're right."

Flash put aside whatever he had heard and set his mind on what will happen. If things go well and he can glitch to his advantage, maybe he will be able to be a playable character. Flash, Ralph and Vanellope reached Game Central and

Vanellope began leading the way to her game. While walking through the station, Flash saw a familiar face he wished he wouldn't see. Across from him and the others walking their way was Bowser. Flash remembered what happened a year ago...

_"...YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE OR ANYWHERE IN THIS ARCADE! FILTHY GLITCH!"_

Flash hid behind Ralph, shivering in fear.

"What's wrong, Flash?" Ralph asked.

"Don't let that guy see me." He explained, pointing at Bowser.

"What? Bowser? Look kid, he may be a cold-blooded king of koopas, but outside the game, he's nice guy." Ralph said, assuringly.

"Trust me. He wouldn't be very happy to see me." Flash tried to convince Ralph. "Here he comes!" He gasped, hiding behind Ralph.

"Ralph! What's going on!" Bowser greeted brightly.

"Uh...Hey Bowser!" Ralph said, making sure to hide Flash behind him. "Not much. Just playing with President Von Schweetz here. By the way, there's gonna be a Bad-Anon meeting Wednesday."

"Alright. I'll see you there then. You going to Luigi's party?"

"You bet."

"Great! See you later. Bye Vanny."

"Later, Turtle Shell." Vanellope saluted.

Bowser waved good bye, heading to Tappers.

"Alright, Flash. You can come out now." Vanellope called.

Flash padded back out in the open, breathing heavily.

"I just saw...my code...flash before my eyes." He gasped.

"What's the deal with you and Bowser?" Ralph asked.

"I don't want to talk about it." Flash remarked flatly.

"Are you sure? We could help you out. That's what we're here for, right?" Vanellope reasoned.

Flash pondered for a moment.

"Okay, but let's talk on the train."

"We're already there." Vanellope said, pointing to the portal that was right next to them. Over the portal were red words saying "Sugar Rush". The three walked in and climbed onto a colorful red train that looked like it was made of hard candy.

"Please avoid licking the train. That would make it all sticky and yucky." Vanellope noted.

With a toot of the whistle, the train was off toward a new game.

"Next stop, Sugar Rush!" She hollered.

**A/N: Sorry for the delay. Had been busy with a lot of schoolwork.**


	7. Chapter 7: Glitching and Racing

The red cherry candy train was chugging its way toward Sugar Rush, with Flash, Vanellope, and Ralph enjoying the ride.

"So Flash," Ralph began, "what's going on between you and Bowser?"

Flash sighed. "Okay. A year ago, on my first time out of my game, I accidentally knocked him over and he was furious. He yelled at me and called me a filthy glitch. I was so scared that I ran off back to my game and never came out." He explained.

"Wow. That must have been pretty rough." Ralph stated.

"Don't be scared, Flash." Vanellope said, holding his hand caringly. "You're safe with us."

"Thanks, Vanellope." He smiled.

"Ooh! Look! Look! Look! We're here!" Vanellope jumped.

The sugary sweet locomotive finally stopped before a rainbow Air-Heads bridge down to a delicious land of sweets and snacks.

"Welcome to Sugar Rush, Flash." She presented.

Flash stepped out into the colorful candy paradise. Up in the sky was a bright yellow Sunny- D sun and many fluffy pink cotton candy clouds. Cookies and crackers covered the land as far as the eye could see. Off in the distance was a candy-coated castle and close by was a race track, paved with cake and frosting.

"This place is amazing!" Flash exclaimed.

"Ready for some glitching lessons?" Vanellope asked.

"You bet!" Flash eagerly stated.

Flash never thought he would be this excited about glitching. He was looking forward to being able to control his code like Vanellope. He thought about how he might be able to be played as. For the first time, Flash felt like the happiest program in the world.

The three strolled their way into the game, with Vanellope leading the way. She brought Flash and Ralph over to an open layer cake field, surrounded by lollipop lilies and fudge soil.

"This is a perfect spot for practice." Vanellope noted.

Flash patiently awaited instruction from Vanellope while Ralph sat on the sidelines, watching.

"Alright, first off, in order to control your glitching, you have to let go and allow yourself to glitch. So just relax."

Flash listened and loosened his grip on his programming. He felt somewhat relieved, considering he had been teaching himself to always get a grip on himself. Upon letting go, Flash's code scrambled and his pixels crackled into cyan sparks. Flash was feeling a little uneasy and sort of stumbled.

"Are you okay, Flash?" Vanellope asked.

Flash's code settled and stopped glitching. "I'm fine. Just fine."

"Good. Now, I want you to focus. Concentrate your code to move where you want to go." In the blink of an eye, Vanellope glitched a few feet away from where she was standing. "Like this."

"Okay."

Flash stared at a spot on the ground next to Vanellope. He focused on that single spot, closed his eyes, and willed himself to move there. He felt his code break apart into static and in an instant he moved. Flash opened his eyes and saw that he moved only two feet closer to Vanellope.

"Not bad for your first time. You just need to practice. That's really all you need to know about glitching. Keep working at it and you can glitch to get anywhere or to go faster."

"Thanks, Vanellope."

Flash looked around the open field and began running around in a large circle at a moderate pace. Flash focused and began crackling into binary until he moved a few feet ahead of where he was before. He continuously repeated this and was glitching faster than he was actually running. Vanellope was impressed.

"Good going, Flash!" She cheered.

_"...You will never be a character..."_

"Huh?"

Flash temporarily lost control and glitched into a puddle of fudge. Vanellope fell to the floor laughing while Ralph walked over to Flash to help him out. He grabbed Flash's hand and pulled him out of the puddle.

"You okay, Sneakers?" He asked.

Flash laughed along with Vanellope. "Yeah, I'm okay. In fact, I feel better than I have felt in a long time."

Vanellope managed to regain her composure and walked over to he other two.

"Alright. I think that's enough for now."

Flash spin-dashed in order to get the fudge off of him. The fudge flew from his curled up form and some splated onto Vanellope and Ralph. When Flash stopped, he tried to keep from laughing at them. The two joined in the laughs and chuckles before wiping off the fudge.

"Hey, Flash! How about a race?" Vanellope asked.

"A race? But you can't possibly run as fast as I can, even with glitching."

"Who said I was running? Follow me."

Vanellope ran off beyond the field, down a slope, over to race track. Flash and Ralph followed. At the starting line, Vanellope climbed into a car made entirely out of candy, with a body messily covered in sprinkles and frosting, candy cane exhaust pipes and different cookies for wheels.

"Come on! You'll race on foot while I race in my kart." Vanellope said.

"That sounds fair. I'll slow up a little too."

"It'll be a one lap race. Also, usually we have items in races, but since your programming isn't compatible here, I'll turn them off. It'll be a race of pure skill."

"Now you're speaking my language!"

"I'll be watching you guys from right here." Said Ralph.

Flash set himself next to Vanellope's kart behind the starting line. Vanellope started her kart's engine and revved it up. Flash took a runner's stance to get set.

"3...2...1...GO!"

Flames burned from Vanellope's candy cane exhaust pipes as she took a rocket start and gained speed quickly, speeding away from the starting line.

Flash took a normal start and accelerated to catch up with Vanellope. Ahead was a graham cracker wall that followed the course, making a Sharp right U- turn. Vanellope drifted through the turn and gained a drift boost. Flash drifted along the turn and gained boost energy. He boosted for a few seconds and was right behind Vanellope, following along the dark chocolate asphalt.

"Nice going! How about this?" Vanellope called.

She skipped ahead in the course in a dazzle of blue pixels and made a 90 degree left turn along the course. Flash made an effort to do the same, but couldn't glitch as far as Vanellope could, though he was able to keep up. Both racers were reaching another right U-turn with the outer end of the turn having boost pads along a line of Resse's, Kit Kat, and Oreo boxes elevated to a slant. Vanellope took the inside of the turn, while Flash ran over the boost pads and acquired enough speed to be neck-in-neck with Vanellope.

"Here comes the fun part!" She shouted in excitement.

Ahead was a large ramp in front of a deep pit full of Nesquicksand. Vanellope jumped the ramp and performed a double back flip with her kart and got a trick boost, racing towards the last turn before the finish line. Flash ran over a boost pad before the ramp and flew up high in the air. He did a front flip...

**_GOOD!_**

Grabbed his feet and did a 720 spin...

**_GREAT!_**

Double back flipped with a spin...

**_AWESOME!_**

Did the splits in mid-air...

**_OUTS+AND1NG!..._**

And broke into cyan binary as he shot through the air, speeding toward Vanellope.

**_AM-AM-AMAZ1NG...01!_**

Flash landed next to Vanellope and the two drifted along the 90 degree right turn before the finish line. Both of them glitched to get ahead of each other and then crossed the finish line at the same time. Flash screeched to a halt and Vanellope spun around in circles before finally stopping.

"WOO-HOO!" She exclaimed from the adrenaline rush.

"Wow! That was a great race, you guys!" Ralph applauded.

"Great race, Vanellope!" Flash congratulated.

"Top shelf!" She held out her fist.

"Top shelf." Flash fist-bumped her.

"Hey guys! It's about time to get to Luigi's party!" Ralph reminded

"That's right! I almost forgot." Vanellope recalled.

"Well, lets get going then." Flash said.

"Ooh! This is gonna be so much fun!"

The trio started walking toward the rainbow Air-Heads bridge back to the Sugar Rush station. Flash was having the most fun he had ever had. This was probably the best day of his life. He was making new friends, seeing new places, and doing new things. What happened a year ago was now completely out of mind.

_"...Still incomplete..."_

Flash had heard this voice again, more clearly than ever before. He looked around to see if anyone aside from Ralph and Vanellope was there. No one.

"Something wrong, Sneakers?" Ralph asked.

"Uh...No. Everything's fine." He lied.

They got back on the cherry red train and headed back for Game Central.


	8. Chapter 8: Flash, Don't Crash!

As the red cherry train had pulled into the ever-bustling Game Central Station, Flash noticed that many characters were heading in one direction. Flash, Ralph and Vanellope walked out of the Sugar Rush portal to see the cause of the commotion. Most of the characters in the station were in line for the Super Mario Bros. portal. Among the crowd, Sonic and Tails were waving for the trio's attention.

"Sonic!" Flash called.

He and the others had maneuvered through the crowd to reach him and Tails.

"Hey Flash! How's the game jumping going?" Sonic asked.

"It's so much better than I thought it would be. I don't think I'm afraid to leave the game anymore." Flash announced, proudly.

"That's fantastic!" Tails congratulated.

"I have you to thank, Ralph." Sonic said.

"Aww. It was nothing, Sonic. Besides, Vanny here was just as much help, if not more."

"Stop it, Stinkbrain. You're embarrassing me." Vanellope blushed.

"So, what's with the long line?" Flash asked.

"Everyone's on their way to Luigi's mansion party. It's the biggest celebration of the year. We were on our way when we saw you guys coming." Tails explained.

"Now that you're here, we can all go." Sonic said.

"What do you say, Sneakers? Are you up for one more game jump?" Ralph asked Flash.

"Absolutely!" Flash responded, without hesitation.

"Well? What are we waiting for?" Vanellope asked. "Come on! The line is already growing!"

The five friends quickly got in line for the portal to get to the party.

_"This is the best day ever."_ Flash thought.

First, Flash was surprised with a birthday party, Ralph and Vanellope help bring him out of his shell and game to see the arcade, Vanellope teaches him how to glitch, the two of them have an exciting race, and now Flash is going to a big party where everyone will have a great time. This day has been the most exciting and fun for him ever since he was activated. The fact that he was incomplete was far from his mind.

_"...Finally...I got you..."_

_"That voice again."_ Flash said to himself.

Flash suddenly felt a bit short of breath and felt something in his code, like something was grabbing his programming. He took a few deep breaths before the sensation had passed.

"Hey Flash, something wrong?" Sonic asked.

"No. Just butterflies in my code, I guess." He answered.

"Don't be nervous. Just have a good time."

Pretty soon, after a few minutes of waiting, the five were in the front of the line for the portal. A large red kart with an "M" on the front, big enough for six, had pulled into the station. Flash, Sonic, Tails, Vanellope, and Ralph climbed on, with Ralph taking up two seats. The kart honked as it pulled away from the station, driving along the electrical wiring towards Super Mario Bros. The kart drove along, passing other karts of different colors, and eventually pulled up to the courtyard of a huge castle with a stained glass window showing what looks like a princess. The five climbed out of the kart and were greeted by a little guy with stubby legs, a blue vest, and a white cap with red spots that made his head look like a mushroom.

"Welcome! My name is Toad and I will show you to the mansion."

They followed Toad across the flower-covered courtyard to a large green pipe.

"Slide down this pipe and it will warp you to the front of the mansion."

"Thanks, Toad." Sonic thanked.

Sonic jumped onto the pipe.

"C'mon guys!" He encouraged as he fell down.

Tails followed without hesitation. Flash peered over the edge of the pipe, reluctant to jump until Vanellope grabbed his hand.

"Hurry up, Sneakers!" She rushed.

She dragged Flash as she fell into the dark pipe.

"Wait for me, guys." Ralph called.

Ralph climbed onto the pipe and was barely able to fit inside. The five slipped and slid through the pipe. Vanellope and Flash were whooping as they slid until they all popped out of the other end of the pipe. Sonic landed on his feet, Tails hovered for a moment before landing next to Sonic, Flash and Vanellope tumbled onto grass, laughing, and Ralph landed on his head.

"Ouch!" He exclaimed.

"You okay, Stinkbrain?" Vanellope asked.

"Yeah, just a rough landing." He answered while rubbing his neck.

Lightning suddenly struck against a dark, cloudy sky. The group was warped to an eerie-looking forest, with trees that had jagged branches without leaves.

Another flash of lightning illuminated a dirt path that lead up to a large structure in the distance It was a mossy green mansion with a sinister look to it, guarded within a stone wall with an open, steel gate.

"There's the mansion." Sonic said.

"Let's go already then!" Vanellope declared, impatiently.

The five of them strolled down the path, through the open gate, up to the front door. A loud bass beat could be heard that shook the mansion. Sonic opened the door and from the inside, a blast of music and lights exploded out. Inside were characters from all around the arcade, like Dig-Dug, Frogger, Candlehead from Sugar Rush, and Markowski from Hero's Duty. All of them were dancing like there was no tomorrow. There were also ghosts of different colors and shapes, including Boos, flying around with the music.

"Sonic! You made it!" Said a voice.

From the second floor, a man, wearing a green shirt, blue overalls, and a green cap with a big "L" on it, with a long mustache snugly under his big nose, slid down the rail of the stairs and landed next to Sonic.

"Luigi! Great party!" Sonic greeted.

"Thanks!"

"Hey, Luigi, is Felix here?" Ralph asked.

"Yeah, he came not long ago. I think he's in the ballroom with Calhoun. Anyways, enjoy the party."

Luigi jumped off back to the second floor.

"Flash, do you want us to show around the place?" Sonic asked.

"Sure. I know it'll be amazing."

"You guys go ahead. Vanellope and I will meet you over in the dining room after awhile, okay?" Ralph said.

"Suit yourselves." Tails said.

Ralph and Vanellope walked through the doors into the main hallway of the first floor. Sonic, Tails, and Flash walked up the stairs, passing by the occasional acquaintance until reaching the parlor.

* * *

Ralph and Vanellope had walked into the dining room, where there was a long, wooden table covered from end to end with many different kinds of foods and sweets. Salads, pastas of a wide variety, pizza, hotdogs, chili dogs, steak, chicken, cakes, pies, and so much more. Across the room from the two was Bowser, who was having beef tacos with a mess of hot sauce.

"Bowser!" Ralph greeted.

"Ralph! Vanny!" He returned the greeting.

"How you doing?" Vanellope asked.

"Pretty good. Just eatin' here."

Ralph then remembered what Flash said about him.

"...he was furious. He yelled at me and called me a filthy glitch."

Ralph just had to ask about his side of the story.

"Uh...Bowser?"

"Yeah, Ralph?"

"Um...Did you happen to meet a hedgehog about a year ago from Sonic's game?"

"Ralph, what are you doing?" Vanellope asked.

"I just want to know what he thinks about what happened." He whispered.

Bowser scarfed down his taco before answering. "Uh...Yeah. I remember. The neon green kid?"

"Cyan." Ralph corrected.

"Yeah, he lost control of his power or whatever and ran into me. I ended up shouting at him because I was so angry, but I actually feel sorry for snapping like that, even if he is a glitch. It's just in my code to get angry quickly and I wanted to apologize after he ran off, but I never saw him again." Bowser explained. "Why?" He asked.

"Well..." Ralph scratched his head. "Sonic introduced us to him today. See after that incident, he's been afraid of leaving his game and hasn't left until today. We're actually showing him around. The last time you saw us, he was hiding from you because he's still afraid."

"Aw, man. You think I can talk to him?"

"Sure. He's somewhere around here. Let's go find him." Vanellope suggested.

* * *

_Meanwhile..._

Sonic and Tails had shown Flash into the ballroom, where mostly everyone was partying and dancing. In the middle of the room was Skrillex as the DJ, playing recognizable game tunes and dance mixes. The room was washed with different colors of lights and lasers and everyone was having a good time.

"Wow! What a party!" Flash shouted over the music.

"Yeah! The Mario Bros. really know how to throw a party!" Tails shouted.

Flash began to bop his head to the beat and started to dance with everyone else. Sonic and Tails joined in too. The three danced to all sorts of songs, such as the DDR Mix of the Super Mario Bros. Underground theme, the Cha-Cha Slide, and Party Rock Anthem. The next song that started playing was Reach for the Stars.

"This is my favorite song!" Flash announced.

Flash began going all out in his dancing. He was breakdancing like crazy to the beat and everyone saw him and gathered around him, cheering him and impressed by his moves. Soon, the song had ended and Flash was tired from all the dancing. All the people watching him applauded. Flash scratched his head and chuckled bashfully.

"Flash! You were awesome!" Sonic congratulated.

"Thanks!" He answered.

Flash never felt better about himself. His worries about being incomplete were far from his mind and he actually felt like a normal character.

"Flash! Sonic!" A voice called.

Felix hopped his way through the crowd followed by Calhoun.

"Felix!" Flash greeted.

"How are you doing?" Felix asked Flash.

"Probably the best I've ever felt."

"That's great to hear." Calhoun stated.

* * *

Ralph, Vanellope, and Bowser walked into the ballroom.

"He could be in here." Vanellope said.

"Let's split up to find him." Ralph suggested.

The three parted ways to find Flash in the large crowd of dancing characters.

Flash took a seat on a chair with Sonic, Tails, Felix, and Calhoun after all the dancing tired him out. Out of the corner of his eye, Flash saw Bowser moving through the dance floor. Bowser turned his head and spotted Flash.

"Hey!" He called.

_"Oh no! It's him!"_ Flash thought.

Flash got up from his seat and took off for the door out of the ballroom.

"Flash! Where are you going?" Sonic called after he saw him leave in a rush.

"Wait!" Bowser shouted, stomping after him.

"Go away!" Flash yelled.

Flash was about to reach the door until he heard the voice again.

_"...Time to take control..."_

Flash suddenly froze where he stood. He was confused about what was happening as he struggled to get himself to move. Flash felt energy building. The energy that he was told not to use.

LA-LAz...0110...Er-ER!

Flash's code was painfully twisted and warped as he transformed.

"AA110UUUUGG001GHHH!" He yelled in agony.

"Flash!" Sonic, Tails, Ralph, and Vanellope simultaneously gasped.

Flash had become a cyan laser, but just stood in the air frozen. Then everyone and everything in the entire game froze where they stood as a loud droning filled the air. The game froze.

**A/N: Uh oh. This doesn't look good. Please review and we will see what will happen.**


	9. Chapter 9: Going Viral

**A/N: Things are going to start picking up right now. Trust me. It's going to be a lot for one chapter to hold.**

* * *

Everything was still in Super Mario Bros. Not one person or thing was able to move. No sound could be heard except for a consistent, electronic droning. Inside Luigi's usually haunted mansion, partygoers and characters were frozen. Among them were Sonic, Tails, Ralph, Vanellope, Bowser, and Flash, who seemed to cause the game to freeze by using his poorly programmed Cyan Lazer move. Though Flash was frozen, he could still feel the twisting and cracking in his code. The pain was unbearable and wouldn't stop.

_"...That seems like enough..."_

Flash was ejected from his laser form by another force and as a result, the game regained motion slightly. Everything lagged bit by bit, gaining motion until the frame rate of the game returned to normal. Everyone in the party was fully aware of the game freezing momentarily. The music stopped and all the characters in the ballroom turned their attention to Flash. Flash fell to the ground with a thud with his body flickering wildly, breaking apart into cyan static, yet still able to hold together. He groaned as he suffered extreme damage to his code. Tears of pain fell from his face.

"Flash!" Sonic shouted.

He ran to Flash's side, trying to help him up, but unable to get a grip on his warped pixels.

"Are you okay?!"

Flash struggled to sit himself up. When he was sitting up, he held himself in a self-hug, cringing from the sting of the lessening pain. His glitching was beginning to settle.

"Hey! What the heck happened?" Someone on the dance floor inquired.

Everyone began murmuring in confusion, noticing the attention on Flash.

"The game was frozen!" Another character shouted.

"That kid is a glitch!"

_"Oh no!"_ Flash thought. _"It's happening again."_

Flash's best day ever had just turned upside down with one accident. He hoped that this wouldn't happen again.

"Hey! He is!"

The partygoers were grumbling angrily.

"It's that kid from Tappers!" One character recognized him.

Everyone began to surround him. Flash steadily got to his feet, stumbling from dizziness.

"He wants to crash this game!"

"N-N0!" Flash tried to defend himself. He began backing up as he was being closed in by the characters until he backed into a wall.

"Hey! Leave him alone!"

Flash turned his head to see Vanellope standing tall on Ralph's shoulder.

"He's not a glitch! And he doesn't want to crash the game either!"

Flash felt relieved. He had a friend to stick up for him.

"Yeah! He wouldn't want to hurt anyone." Sonic spoke up.

"He's a cool guy!" Tails stated.

"And he's our friend!" Ralph announced.

Flash was at a loss for words. He had, not one, not two, but four friends defending him. He couldn't be happier. Finally, he stepped forward and spoke up.

"1 migh+ no+ be a real €haracter...01...but I'm no gli+ch either. I'm a...101...beta €haracter! An incomple+e character!" He shouted as a ripple of static ran through him.

Everyone except Flash's friends gasped.

"No...way. He's not real!"

"He's a waste of kilobytes!"

Flash gasped. His boost of confidence left as quickly as it came. He walked back against the wall and everyone surrounded him, with Ralph, Vanellope, Sonic, and Tails blocked out. The murmuring and grumbling turned into angry shouting and yelling, and people began throwing trash at him.

"Scrapped data!"

"Stop! Please!" Flash pleaded.

_"...Feel the anger..."_

"Get away from him!" Vanellope demanded, pounding at random people in the crowd with her little fists.

"Stop it!" Sonic yelled.

"Freak!"

"Flash!" Tails shouted as he tried to be seen by hovering over the crowd.

Vanellope willed her code to move into the mob, trying to make her way toward Flash. Flash slumped to the floor, curled up, his face buried in his arms, his pixels scrambling each time he was hit with a paper cup or trash.

_"...Feel the hate..."_

"Hey! Leave him alone!" Ralph bellowed.

"MALWARE!"

Those words hit Flash like a punch in the face.

_"Malware? Is that all I am?"_ He thought. _"An unwanted program?"_

_"...Yes...Of course...Your developers scrapped you...You were never meant to be in the game...You'll never be playable...YOU'RE A VIRUS!"_

A torrent of negative emotions had consumed Flash. All he could feel was fear.

"Someone! Help!" He screamed as he gripped his head.

"Flash! I'm coming!" Vanellope called, as she glitched through the mob, getting closer.

His fear turned to sadness.

_"Why does everyone hate me?"_ He thought as he cried.

_"I don't hate you, Flash."_ It was the voice. It sounded the most clearly it had ever been. It sounded almost like him. _"I can help you fight back. We'll show them not to mess with you."_

Flash felt somewhat comforted. This voice seemed connected to him somehow as if it was a part of him. Without thinking, Flash gave the voice permission to help.

_"Okay..."_ Flash thought.

_"Excellent. Now, get mad. Get as angry as you can."_

_"Okay..."_

His sadness turned into anger.

_"It's not my fault. Those people are just putting me down."_ He thought.

_"Yes. They hate you, now you have to hate them."_

_"...Yeah..."_

"Flash, I'm here!" Vanellope shouted as she glitched out of the crowd next to him.

Flash's fur began to pulse a new color. His fur started to take on a dark purple color. His skin took a darker shade of purple and the white bolt mark on his chest turned into a larger, black, and jagged mark. His shoes turned from cyan and blue to purple and black.

"What's up with him?" A character asked.

"Flash...?" Vanellope asked.

His anger turned into hate.

_"Do you feel that power, Flash? Can you feel the negative energy?"_

_"Yeah...I'm feeling...stronger..."_

_"Let it over take you."_

Vanellope held Flash's hand.

His hate turned into...

FRENZY!

Flash opened his eyes to reveal that his pupils disappeared. His quills turned upward and he stopped glitching and stood up.

"Flash!? What happened to you!?"

Flash remained silent and glared at Vanellope. She covered her mouth as she gasped. She saw no expression or emotion in his eyes compared to how full of compassion and innocence they used to be. He pushed her aside gently and began to levitate off of the ground. Everyone who surrounded Flash a moment ago were now backing away in fear.

_"Look at them. They're afraid of you. No one can boss you around. Now show them you mean business."_

_"Okay..."_ Flash thought, with no expression.

Flash shot a purple laser from his palm at the wall, incinerating it. The characters started screaming and yelling in a panic. Everyone ran for the front door of the mansion to reach the pipe to leave the game. Flash flew through the hole in the wall that he created and began causing destruction to the entire area. He shot lasers at the surrounding woods and started a fire. Sonic, Tails, Vanellope, Ralph, Calhoun, and Felix ran to the front door.

"Everyone! Evacuate the entire mansion and head for Game Central Station!" Sergeant Calhoun ordered to all the characters as she pulled out her rifle and hoverboard.

"Wh-What's with Flash!?" Vanellope asked.

"I don't know, but we can't let him destroy this game." Calhoun responded as her rifle powered up.

"No! Don't hurt him!" Vanellope protested.

"You can't!" Sonic agreed. "We can figure out what's wrong."

"And how do you guys expect to get him to stop?" Calhoun inquired.

"He knows me. Maybe I can reason with him." Sonic suggested.

He spotted Flash, flying over, causing havoc to characters trying to exit through the pipe. He shot lasers at them, yet they were able to dodge.

"Flash! Stop!" Sonic shouted.

Flash turned his head toward him.

"This isn't you! You know better than this!"

Flash responded by charging toward Sonic and spin dashing into him. Sonic was tackled into the front wall of the mansion, causing him to drop his rings. Calhoun hopped on her hoverboard, flew up high, and aimed her rifle at Flash.

"Sorry about this, kid. Nothing personal." She said.

She shot plasma blasts at Flash, but he was able to dodge each one. He flew up close to Calhoun and swept her off of her feet with a leg sweep and caused her to fall.

"Tammy!" Felix appeared from the front door of the mansion.

He used his super jump to hop high and grab Calhoun before safely landing on the ground. Flash dropped from the sky and began to spin rapidly until he hit the ground.

DRILL!

He burrowed into the soft ground. Sonic rubbed his head as he stood up from being tackled by Flash and picked up some rings that he dropped.

"Are you okay, Sonic?" Tails asked.

"...Yeah."

"Where did he go?!" Vanellope asked, worried about what's happening.

"He drilled into the ground. I didn't know he can use the Yellow Drill too." Sonic wondered.

The ground rumbled and roared and parts of it began to sink. Some of the ground dissolved into static and binary, leaving only an infinite darkness.

"This area is crashing! The kid's acting like a common virus, aiming to destroy, crash, and consume any type of programming." Calhoun stated.

"We've got to get out of here!" Ralph shouted.

Flash came up from the ground, absorbing the code that he ripped apart from the area.

"But what about Flash? I know he's not a virus." Vanellope said.

"Kid, there's nothing we can do. Virus or not, Sneakers is still going to crash this place."

"N0!" Vanellope yelled as she let blue binary wash over her. "He's my friend! And I'm going to help him!"

Vanellope ran off towards Flash, using her glitch to avoid falling into the endless abyss of data. The deleting data of the ground was getting closer.

"Vanellope!" Ralph yelled.

"Wreck-It! We've got to go now!" Calhoun ordered.

Sonic and Tails were reluctant to leave. They looked at Flash before falling into the pipe, soon followed by Felix.

"No! I'm not leaving without Vanellope!" He protested.

"Flash!" Vanellope tried to get his attention.

Flash saw her and sped towards her extremely fast. He was about to hit her when she glitched to the side.

"Flash, snap out of it! Don't you remember me!?" She reasoned.

Flash winded up to kick her but she glitched away again.

"It's me, Vanellope!"

The ground suddenly crumbled beneath her and the section she was standing on sank down. Vanellope was about to fall in before she grabbed the edge of the ground next to her.

"FLASH!" She screamed.

"VANELLOPE! NO!" Ralph roared.

_"Va-Vanellope?"_ Flash thought.

_"What? That girl? She tried to make you a glitch. Glitches can't be played as." The voice said._

_"...Yeah..."_ Flash droned, emotionlessly. _"But she's gonna fall! She'll be deleted!"_

_"Why should you care?"_

_"...Yeah...Why...?"_

"FLASH, HELP ME!"

Those words rang through Flash's head, snapping him into reality.

_"VANELLOPE!"_ Flash yelled in his head.

He flew down to her and grabbed her by her sweatshirt with one hand, lifting her up.

_"Now delete her. Absorb her code. Grow stronger."_

"Flash...?"

Flash was torn. Confusion scrambled his thinking and he couldn't decide what to do. He could delete Vanellope or save her. Flash raised his free hand and began to charge energy.

"Flash! I know you're in there! You remember me! We played together! We raced together! You're my friend!" Vanellope glitched out of his grip and into his chest, giving him a tight hug.

The hug lasted for a few moments, but something was able to click. Flash's golden amber irises reappeared.

"...Vanellope?" Flash finally spoke.

Flash's fur began to lighten into a bright cyan color and his chest mark turned back into a white bolt. He gently landed on the still crashing ground.

"Hold on tight." He said.

Flash held onto Vanellope in his arms and sprinted for the pipe, jumping to avoid falling. Vanellope held on as tight as she could, happy that Flash was back to normal. The area was almost completely dissolved and was catching up to Flash and Vanellope. The mansion was long gone and the only thing left was the path leading to the pipe.

"Come on, guys!" Ralph shouted. "You're almost there!"

Calhoun jumped into the pipe with Ralph climbing on afterwards, waiting for the two with open arms. Flash jumped one last time into Ralph's arms and Ralph hopped into the pipe before the whole wood where the mansion once stood was gone.

* * *

**A/N: So? What do you guys think? I'm curious. Tell me about it in a review. If I ****get enough reviews, I'll continue the story.**


	10. Chapter 10: Deactivation

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys. I really like to listen to your opinions, so keep reviewing and thanks again!**

* * *

Sonic, Tails, Felix, Calhoun, Ralph, Vanellope, and Flash had traveled all the way back to Tropical Resort into Flash's room. No one said a word on the way, though Flash would occasionally sniffle. His best day ever had turned into a nightmare in reality. He turned into a monster, a virus, who had already destroyed part of another game. Vanellope would try to comfort him by holding his hand, but Flash wouldn't look directly at her. Not after what he almost did to her.

The seven arrived in Flash's room and Flash sat down on his bed, waiting for the inevitable conversation about what went on at the party.

"Okay," Ralph began. "Flash, can you tell us what happened back there?"

"You're not in any trouble and we can help out if you tell us." Felix said, reassuringly.

"...I...don't know. I mean, I was so scared when I was surrounded by everyone and...then, I-I heard a voice." Flash explained.

"A voice?" Sonic asked.

"Yeah. In my head. It sounded a lot like my own voice, only it was stronger, bigger, and braver."

"Hmm..." Felix pondered, remembering something he saw within Flash's code.

"It said something about helping me fight back against everyone else. I felt like I could trust whatever it was and that's when everything went wrong."

"Two textures...Two personalities..." Felix mumbled.

"What's up, Felix?" Tails asked.

"Do you mind if I look at Flash's code again?"

"Sure. Feel free." Sonic said.

Felix walked to the closet door and opened it, revealing the code room yet again, filled with the codes of everyone and everything in the game. Felix jumped out into the zero gravity space and searched for Flash's code. Upon finding it, Felix found that his code was even more beaten up than before, with the wires loose and the block glowing faintly. Felix tapped the block three times to read the code, scrolling through to find what he was looking for.

_"Here it is."_ He said to himself.

Under textures, Felix opened an image file to show a character model, the model of the viral version of Flash, black chest mark and all. Felix closed the window and scrolled down to personality.

"Let's see...Normal: Kind, caring, funny, curious...Nega: Merciless, cruel, destructive? What is 'Nega?'"

Suddenly, a bright red window appeared on the screen, with red flashing letters that said: **"THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN INFECTED!"**

"Oh my land."

Felix quickly closed Flash's code and floated back into the bedroom.

"What did you see?" Flash asked, knowing that the answer wouldn't be good.

"Well, I can say that whatever you turned into was part of your programming."

"Really? That monster that I turned into was meant to be me!?"

"Under certain circumstances." Felix noted. "I read that you can only transform into...that when you experience extreme negative emotions."

This fact somewhat relieved Flash. If he doesn't feel very sad or angry, he'll never have to become that dark version of himself or hurt anyone.

"That's not all. Flash...your code is..." Felix was unsure if he should tell him.

"What?"

"Your code is...infected...with a virus."

That one phrase made everything worse for Flash in just one moment. His very being is under the influence of code-destroying malware on top of being incompletely programmed. Flash felt so angry and frustrated that his fur steadily pulsed purple.

"Flash!" Vanellope shouted.

She quickly ran over to him and hugged him.

"Please, don't turn into that thing again. I like you just the way you are. I don't care if you are a virus."

Flash tried to calm down as his fur returned to cyan. Flash let a tear fall from his eye.

"I'm...sorry." He whispered.

"It's okay."

"C'mon, Vanellope." Ralph said. "The arcade's gonna open. We should get going."

"Okay...I'll come see you after closing time, alright?" She said to Flash, breaking the hug.

He nodded, trying to smile. Vanellope climbed onto Ralph's shoulder and Ralph walked out of the door, along with Felix and Calhoun.

"It'll be okay, Flash." Tails said.

"We'll leave you alone. Come out when your feeling better, okay?" Sonic said.

"A-Alright..."

Tails walked out of the door while Sonic looked back at Flash.

"I'll be fine, Sonic."

"If you say so."

Sonic closed the door, leaving Flash alone in his room. He felt like he has been here before. Alone in his room, with no hope of ever being playable, scared of the outside of the game. But this time, he was infected with a virus.

The arcade had opened, but Flash wouldn't leave his room. He lied on his bed, pondering about why he should even be in the game. Maybe there was a reason why he was inactive in the first place.

_"Why should I exist?"_ He asked himself. _"If I stay active, the rest of the game might get infected."_

Flash looked over at the door to the code room. Right there was the entire game's code and programming. In there could be a way to fix everything. Flash thought hard about what he could do. He didn't want to mess with anyone's code and he wouldn't want to cause any more harm than he already has. Flash paced and paced around the room all day, thinking and planning, until he came up with one solution, just before the arcade was going to close.

_"That's it...That's the only way..."_ He said to himself.

* * *

"All clear! The arcade's closed!" Announced the DDR dancer.

"Come on, Admiral Underpants! Flash is waiting for us!" Vanellope said, excitedly as she dragged Ralph by one of his large fingers.

"We've got plenty of time, President Fartfeathers." Ralph chuckled.

The wrecker and child president spent no time in boarding the monorail to Sonic the Hedgehog. Upon arriving in Green Hill Zone, the two had caught up with Sonic.

"Hey Sonic!" Vanellope called.

"Ralph! Vanellope!"

"How's Sneakers doing?" Ralph asked.

"I'm not sure. He hasn't been out of his room all day. I'm afraid that he's scared of leaving the game again. You want to go see him?"

"Of course!" Vanellope stated.

* * *

_"I wonder what it's like...to be asleep...to not exist..."_ Flash wondered as he gripped the doorknob to the code room.

The door was opened and Flash saw the entire network of data right in front of him.

_"One of those is mine."_

Flash jumped out into the space to find what he was looking for.

* * *

Sonic, Ralph, and Vanellope had just gotten off from the space elevator. Vanellope was excited to see Flash again, even if it has only been one day.

* * *

_"There it is."_

Flash flew up to the code he was looking for.

"ProjectFlash."

Flash tapped the block three times and saw his own code. He couldn't understand it, but could see an option on the side.

"Deactivation."

Sonic knocked on Flash's door and opened it.

"Flash!" He called. "Sorry to barge in, but someone wants to see you!"

No answer. Flash wasn't in his room, but the door to the code room was open.

Sonic gasped and ran to the door to see Flash next to his code.

"Flash!" He shouted.

"Sneakers!" Vanellope called.

Flash tapped on the option and a window appeared.

"Are you sure you want to deactivate this program?" That's what it said with the options "Yes" and "No".

"What are you doing!?" Vanellope yelled.

Flash looked at her with a small smile. He reached for the "Yes" option, but something caused him to stop. Flash was frozen.

_"Not so fast!"_

Flash's code closed up and Flash began to ripple cyan strands of binary.

"Hey!...0110...Wha+'$ g0ing...AAAUU1100UUGGG101GHHH!"

Flash felt an extreme burning in his code. His pixels split apart as some of them began to change into dark purple. He felt like he was being torn in half.

"FLASH!" Vanellope screamed.

Flash's code block began to shine as it appeared to be dividing into two.

"Plea$e...make i+...1010...$+0p..." Flash groaned, losing consciousness.

A sinister, eerie laughing could be heard. Flash's physical form was nothing but scrambled cyan and purple pixels. The two colors separated themselves and the pixels reassembled themselves. The cyan reassembled into Flash who fell unconscious from the pain. The purple reassembled into Flash's darker self. The light that emanated from Flash's code disappeared revealing two separate codes.

Flash the Hedgehog and Nega Flash

"Ha! It's about time I got out of that pathetic rodent's code." The purple hedgehog laughed.

"Who...who are you?" Ralph asked.

"I am Nega Flash, the dark form of Flash the Hedgehog. But now that I am my own character, I don't need this filthy glitch."

Nega Flash grabbed Flash's arm and flung his unconscious form out into his bedroom. Ralph caught him in his arms.

"Flash! Flash! Wake up!" Ralph tried to wake him.

"Flash! Please! You got to get up!" Vanellope pleaded.

"...Vanellope?" He groaned.

Nega Flash flew over to Flash's new code block. He tapped it three times to open his code.

"2...4...6...8. Guess who I'll deactivate."

He pressed "Deactivation" and pressed "Yes". Flash glitched for a moment before the pixels that made up his shoes began to scatter and disappear, moving up his body, leaving only a wireframe.

"Flash! What's happening to you!?" Sonic asked.

"What else? He's deactivating, idiot."

Half of Flash's pixels had disappeared.

"No! Flash! Please! Don't go!" Vanellope cried.

"...Vanny...I'm...sorry..."

All of his pixels had scattered while his wireframe had flickered for a few seconds before fading from existence.

"Flash! No!"

Vanellope hugged Ralph and sobbed on his shoulder. Sonic slammed his fist on the wall before turning his attention toward Nega Flash.

"Aw! Stop your crying! He was incomplete anyways!"

Nega Flash flew out of the room, slammed the door, tapped random spots on it and a Sega Genesis controller was conjured onto the door. Nega Flash then flew out into the Tropical Resort.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I got some code to crash."

"C'mon guys! We gotta follow him!" Sonic said, running out of the bedroom.

"Let's go, kid." Ralph said, carrying her with him out to follow Sonic.

"...Flash..." Vanellope choked.


	11. Chapter 11: The True Threat

Sonic raced as fast as he could to catch up with Flash's evil alter ego, Nega Flash, who was flying toward Green Hill Zone. With no time to wait for the space elevator, Sonic entered Terminal Velocity, running right on Nega's tail.

"Come catch me if you can, Sonic!" Nega taunted, as he flew just above Sonic.

Ralph came to the station for the space elevator with Vanellope on his shoulder. He entered the vehicle and accelerated toward the world below. Vanellope got off of Ralph's shoulder and sat on a seat, sniffling, still upset about Flash's deactivation. Ralph was looking out the window for Sonic and Nega while also being cramped inside the elevator, being that it wasn't designed for characters his size. He turned his attention to Vanellope.

"Hey. Hey. Don't cry, kid." Ralph said, lifting her chin.

"I...I just miss him...so much, Ralph." She sniffed, looking back down.

"We'll bring him back. He's not gone for good."

Vanellope wiped her eyes and looked up at the wrecker, giving him a small smile. A small tremor shook the elevator. Ralph and Vanellope looked out the window to see that Nega was shooting purple lasers at Sonic. Sonic dodged by quick stepping left and right. Nega demolished parts of the road where Sonic was running on, but Sonic jumped over the damaged areas to avoid falling into space. Nega left himself open and Sonic jumped high to homing attack into Nega, but Nega kicked him down like a soccer ball.

"Is that the best you've got, hot shot?" Nega shouted.

He tumbled on the ground, dropping his rings, while Nega sped off toward the planet below. Sonic quickly got up and accelerated to keep up while he and the elevator were nearing the planet. He jumped off of the tower to the grassy ground, scanning the area for Nega. Ralph and Vanellope exited the elevator and caught up with Sonic.

"Where did he go?" Ralph asked.

"I don't know. I lost him." Sonic answered, still looking around.

From the corner of his eye, Sonic saw Nega emerge from behind the tower, about to shoot.

"Look out!" He shouted.

Sonic pushed Ralph and Vanellope as hard as he could before getting hit with Nega's laser. He tumbled backwards to the ground, knocked out.

"Sonic!" Vanellope shouted.

Sonic flickered and blinked for two seconds before he regenerated on his feet.

"I'm okay! Don't worry."

Vanellope sighed in relief.

"That was a cheap move, coward!" Ralph shouted at Nega.

"So? I don't care. I'm far more powerful than Sonic or my pathetic positive side."

"Why are you doing this? You're a beta character like Flash so what would you possibly gain by crashing games."

"You don't listen very well, do you? Isn't it obvious? That virus that my opposite was infected with? I am that virus."

It made sense to Sonic now. That was why Flash was acting like a virus back at the party. He was under the influence of Nega Flash. He was the voice the Flash was hearing in his head.

"You...You were the one who caused Flash to go nuts at the party!" Ralph stated.

"Finally! Someone catches on!" Nega falsely praised. "In case you have anymore dumb questions, I'll tell you everything. I was programmed to be the Flash's dark side, which is why we used to share the same code. I hated being the lesser side of the same character, so I split from him. I would have separated from my positive side sooner, but I wasn't strong enough. I needed to absorb code in order to grow, so I influenced him to crash the mansion area for me to absorb its code. Also, unlike him, I don't glitch because my programming is complete. And now that I split myself from his code, I'm now free to crash every game in this arcade and become the most powerful virus ever!"

"In your dreams!" Vanellope protested.

"Yeah?" Nega chuckled. "Well, who's gonna stop me?"

"I am." She announced.

"And me." Sonic said.

"And me." Ralph said.

"Suit yourselves."

CUBE!

Nega transformed into a dark purple cube and slammed himself to the ground, causing a powerful shockwave which threw the three backwards.

"Oh! Did I forget to mention I can use all color powers?" Nega mocked.

LAZER!

Nega transformed into a purple laser and shot himself toward the portal to Game Central.

"...Hey! Get back...here!" Sonic shouted as he slowly got back up.

* * *

Nega Flash was long gone and flew through the electrical wiring into the station. Upon reaching the Station, Nega's presence caused a panic among the characters who were at Luigi's party. Among them were Felix and Calhoun, who were just walking out of Fix-It Felix Jr. Everyone began to run for their games.

"Tammy! Look!" Felix shouted, pointing at Nega.

"Flash has gone viral again!" Calhoun gasped.

Nega chuckled darkly and zipped into the first portal that caught his attention, Hero's Duty.

"He escaped into your game!" Felix pointed out.

Suddenly, a beeping noise was coming from Calhoun's belt. She pulled out what looked like a communicator.

"Johnson, report!" She ordered.

"Ma'am, cy-bugs broke loose in our game! We need your help!"

"On my way! Come on, Fix-it."

"Flash and Cy-bugs? Jiminy jaminy. This day cannot get worse."

Felix and Calhoun made a break for the portal to Hero's Duty.

* * *

"Are you guys okay?" Sonic asked after dusting himself off.

"We're fine. We're fine." Vanellope answered after helping Ralph up.

"The guy's gonna destroy the arcade." Ralph said.

"What can we do?" Vanellope asked hopelessly.

Sonic paced for a moment, mumbling to himself.

"Sonic!" Called a friendly voice.

"Tails!" Sonic greeted.

"I saw Flash shoot by me, heading to Game Central. What's going on?" The fox asked.

"Flash's dark side split himself from Flash and is going to wipe out the arcade if we don't do something." Ralph answered.

"What!? Split himself from Flash!? How?"

"We'll explain later. Right now we need to get to the station."

The four wasted no time in reaching the portal and taking the monorail into Game Central.


	12. Chapter 12: Mega Nega Problems

Sonic, Tails, Ralph, and Vanellope had arrived at Game Central Station and immediately knew that something was wrong. Upon entering, the four found that the whole station was entirely deserted. Nothing was damaged and everything was intact, but not a single program was around.

"What happened here? Where is everyone?" Ralph asked.

"Gone for their games." The surge protector said as he appeared from a tiny blue spark. "When that hedgehog came through the portal, everyone evacuated for the safety of their games. The surge sensors went crazy and alerted me that they detected a virus coming into the station."

"Where did he go?" Sonic asked.

"Into Hero's Duty."

"Come on, then! Let's go the creep!" Vanellope insisted, rolling up her sleeves, stomping towards the game.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa! Hold it right there, princess." Ralph said, pulling on the hood of her light blue sweatshirt.

"That's president to you, Stinkbrain! Let me go!" She resisted, sputtering into light blue binary.

"You're not going anywhere except back to Sugar Rush, where you're safe, kid."

"No! I'm going with you guys."

"I don't want to lose you!" Ralph yelled.

"Wh-What?" She stared, wide-eyed at his outburst.

"I care about you too much to let you be deleted. I almost lost you at the party. I'm not letting that happen again."

"But what about Flash?"

"I care about him as much as you do, but it's too dangerous for you to go in there."

Vanellope drooped her head low, staring at the ground.

"Vanny, look at me." Ralph said softly.

She lifted her head enough to look at his face.

"Promise me that you'll stay in your game."

Vanellope paused a moment, then nodded.

"Good."

She jumped onto his shoulder to give the wrecker a hug. He returned the embrace before forcing himself to part.

"Please bring Flash back." She said.

"Promise." Ralph said.

Vanellope hopped down to the ground from Ralph's hands and looked back at him before running for Sugar Rush.

"Alright...Let's go." He said.

"Right." Sonic and Tails said in unison.

The trio entered the portal for Hero's Duty and boarded the large tram.

* * *

The world of Hero's Duty had become a battlefield. Swarms of cy-bugs buzzed all around the atmosphere and along the ground, fulfilling their destructive programming, consuming and becoming whatever weapon or armor they eat. Soldiers everywhere were scrambling to fight them back. Among them were Sgt. Calhoun and Fix-It Felix. Calhoun was shooting plasma rounds at incoming cy-bugs, while Felix hopped around, searching for a sign of Nega Flash.

"Vollmer! How much longer until the beacon is charged and ready!?" She inquired.

"Less than five minutes, Ma'am." The soldier answered.

"I can't find Flash!" Felix shouted as he landed next to Calhoun.

"Darn! He could crash this world at any second."

Sonic, Tails, and Ralph had pulled into the Hero's Duty station. Upon exiting the tram, they were awestruck by the mayhem that was taking place.

"Sweet Mother Hubbard!" Ralph exclaimed.

"Cy-bugs are running loose too? Can this get any worse?" Sonic asked.

"Guys!" Felix called out to them.

"Felix!" Ralph called back.

The group met up with him and Calhoun.

"What's going on here?"

"Cy-bugs broke loose after the arcade closed. The beacon needs to charge so everyone is trying to hold them back. What's going on with Flash? Why is he acting like a virus again?" Calhoun asked

"First off, that wasn't Flash. At least, not anymore." Ralph said.

"What do you mean?" Felix asked.

"That...thing is the virus that infected Flash. The virus split from him by gaining strength from the code that Flash absorbed at the mansion party, making him and Flash two different people." Sonic explained.

"If that's true, then...where's Flash?" Felix asked.

Sonic and Ralph had a sad look on their faces.

"Flash...was deactivated." Said Ralph.

Tails, Felix, and Calhoun were shocked.

"Oh my land..."

"Not permanently. We can still reactivate him, but Nega had the code room locked, probably to keep us away from his code."

"And that room is going to stay that way!" Shouted a familiar voice.

The five turned their attention to the source of the voice, which came from Nega.

"You!" Sonic yelled.

"Nice of you to join me to witness the destruction of this game!"

A cy-bug flew up behind Nega, about to devour him, but Nega blasted it to bits using his palm laser without looking at it, leaving behind scattered binary. Cy-bugs all around noticed Nega and began to swarm around him. Nega smirked and blasted the surrounding cy-bugs, one by one. A few cy-bugs would gang up on him and tackle him to bind him, but he would break free with little effort.

SPIKES!

Nega curled into a ball and large purple spikes protruded from his quills. The spikes shot from his back and impaled the circuitry and armor of a large number of nearby cy-bugs, destroying them instantly.

"Ha! These are the most dangerous programs in the arcade!? Please! I don't even need to try." Nega laughed.

Every remaining cy-bug attacked him at once, piling up over him, trying to devour him as they were programmed to do.

VOID!

Everything went still for a moment before all the cy-bugs were forcefully ripped apart into the singularity of a large black hole. The black transformed back into the form of the viral hedgehog, who began to absorb the code of all the cy-bugs he destroyed, growing stronger with each byte.

Sonic decided to act now. He sprinted toward Nega, while he was busy and homing attacked him with as much force as he could muster. The attack was successful and strands of code broke free from his body, scattering around the air. Some of the code left the game. Nega tumbled to the ground while Sonic landed safely.

"That's strange. Was that the code the belonged to the other games?" Tails thought.

"How rude! Attack a guy while he's absorbing code. Now, it's my turn." Nega said.

_"Uh-oh. Better change to my Fighters programming."_ Sonic thought.

Sonic's pixels scrambled and readjusted themselves for a quick moment before Nega flew at Sonic at a high speed and punched him across the face. Sonic tumbled on the ground before hitting the wall of the tower.

"Sonic!" Tails shouted.

Sonic got back up to his feet with only a few scratches.

"Don't worry! I'm okay!" He assured.

Nega was surprised.

"Hey! Why didn't you die!? You don't have any rings!" He demanded to know.

"I switched to my Fighters programming. Now I don't need rings to survive as long as I have health." Sonic smirked as he rubbed his nose.

"Then I'll beat the life out of you!"

Nega ran towards Sonic, about to punch him again, but then was punched by Ralph with his enormous wrecking hands.

"Thanks, Ralph." Sonic said.

"Don't thank me yet."

Nega flew across the battlefield before slamming onto the ground. He growled in anger before immediately getting back on his feet.

ROCKET!

Nega transformed into a purple rocket and soared high into the sky.

"What's he doing?" Sonic asked.

CUBE!

"Oh, boy!" Ralph said.

Nega was falling down above both Sonic and Ralph as an extremely dense cube. The two ran to get out of the way, but when the cube impacted, it caused a huge shockwave that almost blew away Tails, Felix, and Calhoun and ran Sonic into a boulder and Ralph tumbling across the ground. The crater that Nega created with his cube form had dissolved into code and Nega began to absorb it.

"Sonic! Ralph! Are you guys okay?" Tails asked.

"This guy is tough! How are we gonna beat him?" Sonic asked.

"He seems almost invincible." Ralph stated.

Tails thought for a moment before getting an idea.

"Do you have the Chaos Emeralds?" He asked.

"No. I left them back in the Special Stages and we don't have time to go back to our game and win them."

"Hmm...Well...I have a faster idea, but we'll have to break some rules."

"With the situation we're in, I think we don't have a choice." Ralph noted.

"I'll go back to our code room with Felix and hack the game so that you have all the emeralds."

"Brilliant idea. We'll keep tall, dark, and viral busy." Sonic said.

Nega suddenly emerged from the ground as a purple drill, sneaking up on the three.

"Here's Negy!"

"Go! Quickly!" Ralph shouted.

Tails began running back to meet with Felix.

"Where do you think you're going, Miles?" Nega asked.

He shot palm lasers in his direction, but Sonic intervened by homing attacking him from behind. Nega grunted from the sudden force.

"Alright, hot shot. You'll be first."

Tails found Ralph, Felix, and Calhoun taking refuge in the deployment unit for the soldiers.

"Felix! You've got to come with me back to my game!" He said, urgently.

"Wh-Why?" He asked, surprised.

"We have to hack the game to get something important."

"Really? Isn't that sort of risky, Tails?"

"We don't have many options to work with. We need to do it."

"Alright. If you say so. Tammy, will you be safe here alone?" He asked Calhoun.

"Go on, you two. I can take care of myself." She answered.

Tails spun his twin tails and lifted himself off of the ground.

"Grab on, Felix." He said, reaching his hand out.

Felix jumped and grabbed hold of Tails' hand and the two flew off into the portal and back to Game Central to reach Sonic the Hedgehog.

**_"It's hopeless! Why bother trying!? The arcade is mine!"_**


	13. Chapter 13: Cheats and Hacks

Tails and Felix flew swiftly through Game Central back into the Sonic the Hedgehog portal. Upon reaching Green Hill Zone, Tails grew tired since he was only programmed for limited flight.

"I...gotta...land." He rasped.

Tails gently lowered Felix to the ground before stopping his tails and plopping to the ground.

"*pant* Sorry, Felix. *pant* I can't fly any further." He panted.

Felix reached his hand to grab Tails and lifted him to his feet.

"No worries, Tails, but we need to move quickly. We don't have much time." Felix noted.

"I don't know how we'll make it to the code room in time. It's a long way to the elevator and, even then, the ride up could take a lot of time."

"Jiminy jaminy. What are we going to do?"

"Something the matter, Tails?" A voice asked.

Tails turned his head toward the source of the voice and found a black hedgehog with red markings on his quills, arms, and legs wearing air skates.

"Shadow!"

"I heard you were in a rush. Need me to lend a hand?" He asked in his usual low tone.

"Well, we need to get to Tropical Resort fast." Tails explained.

"That's no problem for me. I'll warp you there. Get close to me."

Tails and Felix walked and stood by Shadow's sides. Shadow pulled out a shining green gem full of unlimited energy.

"Lucky for you guys, I earned this emerald earlier today." He said smugly.

He lifted the emerald high to the sky.

"CHAOS CONTROL!"

Time and space was twisted and warped as the three were instantly teleported to the Tropical Resort in front of the space elevator.

"Come on!" Tails urged.

The trio raced across the neon-lit paradise back to Flash's house. They entered his room and saw that everything in it was completely gone. No bed. No posters. No drawer. Not even a painted wall. It was a blank white door to the code room was still intact with a large Sega Genesis controller embedded in it.

"What happened in here? Where did everything go?" Felix asked.

Tails walked up to the door and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge.

"Locked. Just like Sonic said." Tails said.

"How are we going to reach the code?" Felix wondered.

"It seems to me that the controller is the key to unlocking the door, but only with the right code." Shadow said.

"But the code can be anything."

The three stood in silence, thinking about possible solutions. Felix tapped his toes with his arms crossed until he remembered something.

"I think I have something. In Vanellope's game, Sugar Rush, there was a vault door, locked with a controller, that also lead to the game's code room. I recall the code so it might work here."

"I guess it's worth a try." Tails said.

Felix inputted the code as he remembered.

"Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start." He mumbled.

Nothing.

"Darn."

"Is there any code native to this game?" Shadow asked.

"Sonic's first game had one. I believe it was..."

Tails inputted the code.

"Up, C, down, C, left, C, right, C, Start."

Nothing.

"We're losing time!" Felix panicked.

"Think, think, think. What are we missing?" Tails thought as he paced through the empty room.

"What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" Felix repeated as he jumped around, worrying.

"We can stop panicking for a start." Shadow said with his arms crossed in a relaxed tone.

"...a start. A start. A START! I've got it!" Tails had a revelation.

"Up, C, down, C, left, C, right, C, hold A, Start!"

The sound of a ring being collected was heard and the door was opened.

* * *

Sonic homing attacked Nega, but Nega grabbed him and drove him into the ground. Ralph charged toward Nega like an angry bull and punched him away from him. Nega retaliated quickly and flew back toward Ralph, punching him with the same amount of force. Ralph rolled backwards until he slammed against a boulder.

"Is that the best you guys can do? What a bore!" Nega mocked.

Sonic revved upon place and charged up power until he was covered in pure energy. He let it loose and flew all around Nega.

"Hey! What's the big idea?" Nega shouted, unable to keep up with Sonic's speed.

"You might be all big and bad, but you can never keep up with me." Sonic boasted.

He came up from behind Nega, curled into a ball, and ground into his back, pushing him to the ground. Strands of binary escaped from Nega's body and scrambled to their programmed homes. Some of the ground that dissolved from Nega's cube attack had regenerated. Sonic jumped up and performed a bounce attack to slam on Nega, but Nega punched Sonic as he was coming down. Sonic landed a few feet away on his feet.

"That's it, you little pest! I'm done toying with you!" Nega yelled.

HOVER!

Nega transformed into a purple hovercraft and floated toward Sonic. Sonic bursted out laughing.

"Done toying with me? What a joke!" He snickered.

He jumped up and launched a homing attack on Nega, but before he landed a hit on him he stopped in midair, mere inches from Nega.

"Oh really?"

"Hey! I...can't...move." Sonic struggled.

"The Nega Hover gives me telekinetic powers. As Silver the Hedgehog would say, 'It's no use!'"

Sonic fought to break free from Nega's telekinetic grasp, but nothing worked. Nega slammed Sonic all over the ground and threw him forcefully into the tower wall. The tower was greatly damaged and bits of 1s and 0s dripped from the damaged spot.

"Sonic!" Ralph yelled in concern.

He sprinted toward Nega, jumped, and wound up to punch him, but Nega grabbed him with his powers and hammered his body into the tower's weak point. The tower rumbled and binary broke loose from the weak spot until the tower crumbled and dissolved into code as it fell. Nega assimilated with the pure code, his strength soaring to new heights. Sonic intervened and launched a homing attack on Nega. However, his efforts proved useless as Nega grabbed him.

"You know what they say, Sonic. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..."

He felt himself getting squeezed, as if Nega is trying to crush him. The pressure was slowly but surely growing.

"Ngh...AAHHH!" Sonic shouted.

"...not likely."

"...Sonic..." Ralph said, hoarsely, unable to lift himself from the ground.

"...S-Stop..." Sonic groaned.

"I'll stop alright. After you're nothing but code!"

* * *

The code room was unlocked, revealing the network of code that keeps the game in order. Each block glowing, sharing information through a highway of wires.

"C'mon, Felix. Grab on." Tails said, reaching his hand out.

"Alright." Felix said, taking his hand.

Tails spun his tails and flew into the room, carrying Felix, looking for what they need to find.

"We need to find the code for the Special Stages." Tails informed.

"Let's see...Eggmobile...Central City...Nega Flash...Wait! Tails! Look here!"

Felix pointed toward a single block belonging to the virus they are fighting against. Tails maneuvered himself to fly toward it. Felix let go of Tails' grasp to examine the code. He tapped on the block three times to open the binary that programmed Nega.

"Physics...Personality...Textures... ... ?" Tails read, confused by the two texture files.

"Two textures? Again? But I thought he split from Flash." Felix said.

Tails opened both files. The file showed Nega Flash's texture. Purple fur, black chest mark, purple and black shoes, nothing they haven't already seen. The file showed something completely different. It was Flash. At least, it looked like Flash. He had completely white fur, from head to toe. His eyes were crystal blue instead of golden amber. His shoes were also white.

"What? Why is there another texture of Flash in Nega's code?" Felix asked.

"It's a real mystery. I'm starting to think that there is more to Nega than just being a virus."

Tails continued scrolling down and found a section of the code called "Other." In it was random binary that didn't make sense.

"What's this? I can't read this code." Tails stated.

"Me neither."

The binary began writing itself. New 1s and 0s were being integrated into Nega's code.

"I've never seen anything like this." Felix said.

"What if this new code is the code of the things that Nega absorbed?" Tails suggested.

"If that's true, then he's absorbing something right now. We have to do act now."

Felix looked at Nega's code and had an idea.

"Hey! We have access to his code. Why don't we just deactivate him?"

Tails thought for a moment, scratching his head.

"Though that would be the easiest solution, we can't." Tails said.

"Why not?" Felix asked.

"If we do deactivate him, the code that Nega absorbed will be deactivated too, and without that code, the games that he stole it from will be unplugged for sure. We need to take the code back to where it belongs." Tails explained.

"If you guys are done chit-chatting, get a move on with what you need to do!" Shadow shouted from the door.

"He's right, Felix. Let's keep looking."

Tails closed Nega's code and pulled Felix off to find the code they need to find.

"G.U.N. Truck...Motobugs...Shadow the Hedgehog. Oh! Hey Shadow!" Tails called.

"What is it, Tails?" Shadow answered.

"Do you mind if we borrow your Chaos Emerald?"

"Not at all. Let me get it."

"No need for that."

Tails tapped Shadow's code twice and the code of everything he had was shown. Among the Fire Bracelet, Air Skates, and dozens of rings on his person was the code of the Chaos Emerald, a small green tile with an image of a green emerald. Tails gently and carefully extracted the code from Shadow. Shadow, at the same time, pulled out the Emerald and held it in his hand, but suddenly, it disappeared into blue static and binary.

"Hey! What gives!?" Shadow yelled.

"Sorry, Shadow!" Tails giggled as he continued through the network.

"Here are the Special Stages, Tails!" Felix called from in front of another code block.

Felix tapped twice on the code and revealed the other six Emeralds. Felix extracted them from the Stages and joined up with Tails.

"Okay. We have all the Emeralds. Now we find Sonic's code." Felix said.

"Right."

The two flew around the weightless space looking for Sonic's code until they found it.

"He's over here, Felix!" Tails informed.

Both friends opened his code and carefully placed each Emerald into Sonic's possession.

Sonic could feel his source code being crushed by Nega's grip and was crackling into blue pixels. He would soon break into code and become absorbed by him.

_"Heh...I guess it's game over for me..."_ Sonic thought.

"Any last words, rat?" Nega asked.

Sonic suddenly felt a surge a familiar energy course through him. He felt the Chaos Emeralds flicker and spark into physical form.

"Yeah...I've got something I wanna say."

With his newfound energy, Sonic was able to break free of Nega's telekinesis.

"What!? How did you...?" Nega exclaimed in surprise.

Sonic levitated up to Nega's level.

"I'm no rat, Nega."

Seven glowing Emeralds appeared around Sonic, granting him incredible power.

"I'm a hedgehog!"

Sonic's fur turned from blue into a burning golden color and his eyes from emerald green into a bright ruby red. Surrounding him was a blinding and burning golden aura.

"Ready for round two?"


	14. Chapter 14: A Friend Returns

**Sorry for the delay, but I've been suffering writer's block along with school and graduation stuff. But now here's the next chapter.**

* * *

Sonic, with his energy rejuvenated and empowered with the power of the Chaos Emeralds, flew toward Nega at near the speed of light and spin dashed into him with great force. Nega was slammed into the ground and stolen code was freed from his body, scrambling to their original homes. Some parts of the ground and portions of the tower rebooted. Nega growled as he jumped into the air and curled up.

SPIKES!

Dark purple spikes grew from Nega's spines and shot off his back, homing on Sonic. Sonic maneuvered himself up and down and all around the spikes and advanced toward Nega, with the flying spikes turning to follow. Nega unleashed a barrage of punches and kicks on Sonic, but he easily dodged with his superior speed. Sonic punched him right in the nose.

"Augh!" Nega exclaimed, as he gripped his muzzle in pain. "Of all places, you punch there!?"

Sonic suddenly dropped to the ground, leading the way for the spikes to hit Nega. Nega was scraped and scratched all over as he took the hit for every spike that was following Sonic. He fell to the ground, stiff from the damage he sustained. He slowly got up to his feet as a ripple of purple static ran through him for a split second. Sonic saw this and rubbed his eyes just to be sure.

"Darn!" Nega said under his breath.

He immediately lifted off the ground and sped off, heading for the portal. Ralph struggled to his feet and Sonic walked over to him.

"You okay, Ralph?" He asked.

"...I've been better, but not too bad." Ralph responded after stretching out his sore shoulder. "Where did the half-baked hedgehog go?"

"He ran off to Game Central. We better get moving."

Sonic lifted Ralph by his arm and began to lift off.

"Ngh...Sonic? Go easy with the flying. Still kinda beat up here." Ralph groaned.

"Sorry." Sonic apologized as they gave chase to Nega back to the Station.

* * *

Tails closed up Sonic's code and dusted his gloves.

"Well, that should do it. I hope Sonic can do the rest now." Felix said.

"Now, there's one more thing we have to do." Tails said as he looked around the code.

The two glided around until they found what they were looking for.

"'Flash the Hedgehog'" Felix read on one of the codes.

Tails tapped the block three times and opened the source code. He scanned the screen until he found the "activation" option. He tapped it and the code closed, already starting to load.

"I hope it works." Felix said.

Tails and Felix made their way out of the code room and back into the blank white room with Shadow. Upon closing the door, the entire room flickered and binary washed over it, bringing color and life back into existence. In an instant, the entire room was as it used to be, with the shelves full of knick-knacks and the bright blue walls. A few seconds afterward, the wireframe of a hedgehog, lying on the floor, flickered into being and cyan pixels assembled themselves on the frame until the whole hedgehog was complete, but unconscious. Flash was reactivated. Tails knelt down next to him.

"Flash? Can you hear me?" He asked as he shook him by the arm.

Flash groaned as he stirred from his hibernation. He opened his eyes to find Tails, Felix, and Shadow around him.

"Tails...?" He responded.

"You're awake!" Felix jumped for joy.

Shadow merely crossed his arms with a small smirk on his face. Flash sat himself up as his pixels scrambled for a moment.

"What happened?" He asked.

"A virus. That's what happened." Felix said.

"Virus?!" Flash exclaimed.

He glitched to his feet in a blink, panicked.

"I thought that I was just having a nightmare. You mean that other me is real!?" Flash inquired.

"Very real. And right now he's trying to crash the arcade, starting with Hero's Duty. Sonic and Ralph are fight him back as much as they can." Tails explained.

"Well, we've got to help them! Now!" Flash insisted.

He burst out of his room, running for the space elevator to reach the portal.

"Flash! Wait!" Tails called, running after him, followed by Felix and Shadow.

Flash ran at his top speed, but suddenly he glitched out into binary before tripping and falling to the ground.

"Flash! Don't strain yourself! Your programming is still rebooting." Felix said, concerned.

"Does that really matter now? The arcade is in danger and you're worried about a beta like me?" Flash asked.

"The kid has a point." Shadow said. "We're risking time for fighting back a virus just to care for him."

"But you're not just a beta, Flash. You're our friend and whether you're a glitch, beta, or virus, nothing will change that." Tails said.

"Really? You mean that?"

"Of course. Now come on. Let's go back to your room where you can rest until your code is done rebooting."

"...I...I don't want to."

"What?" Felix asked.

"I want to help. I'm not just going to sit around while you guys try to fix a problem that I'm the cause of."

"Well..." Tails thought "...okay. But, be careful and stay close to us."

Flash smiled and he, Tails, and Felix began venturing to the elevator, but then Tails stopped and turned.

"Shadow! Aren't you coming?" He called.

"I'm staying to lock that code room. Better make sure no one else messes with it. You guys go on ahead!" Shadow answered.

Shadow turned and headed back for Flash's room. The trio continued for the elevator.

* * *

Nega burst out of the portal for Hero's Duty and searched for another game to crash while escaping from Sonic.

"Nega!" Sonic shouted from within the portal.

"Uh-oh. Time to go!" Nega said to himself as he shot into the next game, Sugar Rush.

"Get back here!" Sonic yelled while hot in pursuit, following him into Sugar Rush.

_"Oh no."_ Ralph thought. _"Vanellope..."_


	15. Chapter 15: Hide and Seek

Since being sent back to Sugar Rush, Vanellope knew that she had to keep her subjects safe from the hazardous hedgehog. Even as a little girl, the young president managed to maintain order. A few citizens of the candy covered paradise fell into panic, but Vanellope was able to calm them down. In order to hide everyone from Nega, should he find his way into Sugar Rush, Vanellope led her sweet subjects to the beta level in Diet Cola Mountain, her old hideout from her days as a glitch. Being that it was only her and her advisor, Sour Bill, keeping order, along with Winchell and Duncan, keeping organized proved to be difficult. It took awhile to get everyone into the volcano without having Mentos fall into the diet cola hot springs, but by the present time, everyone had occupied most of the space.

"Whoo! That was hard. Sour Bill, is that everyone?" She asked the pint-sized gumdrop.

"Uh...Yes, President Vanellope." He answered in a more panicked tone than his usual monotone voice.

A lot of mumbling could be heard from within the mountain. Vanellope ran over to where everyone could see her and pulled out a waffle cone megaphone.

"Hey! Listen up, guys, cuz I'm only going to say this once! Keep quiet until everything is safe! I don't want that fudge-for-brains virus to find us!" She announced.

Immediately, all was so quiet that a mouse walking on cotton could've been heard.

"Good. Now, we'll have to stay this way until it is completely safe." She said.

A small tremor shook the entire candy kingdom. One piece of Mentos fell from its stalactite and was about to fall into the hot springs. Vanellope ran and jumped out and glitched forward to grab the piece and glitched safely on the other side of the springs.

_"That was close."_ She thought, wiping her brow. _"He's here."_

* * *

Nega zipped out of the portal, down the rainbow Airheads bridge, and into the saccharine surface world of Sugar Rush. He took a moment to look at his surroundings.

"Aww! What a wonderful world to crash!" He mused.

"Nega!" He heard Sonic coming.

Nega merely waved cheerfully as Sonic flew through the portal before diving straight for the ground.

DRILL!

He transformed into a dark purple drill and burrowed into the ground, beginning to rip the game's code apart, causing a tremor that could be felt across the land. Sonic carefully let Ralph down to the ground. Ralph collapsed on the sugary floor, exhausted from being beaten around by Nega.

"We...can't let him...destroy this game." Ralph groaned.

"I promise that I won't let him, Ralph." Sonic replied.

Just like at Luigi's Mansion, the ground below started to crumble. Nega chuckled darkly as he dug through the ground, absorbing code. Suddenly, he felt something bubble up within himself. His drill form sparked into purple static before he found himself on the frosting paved surface, ejected from his drill form.

"Darn! I thought I got that under control!" He told himself under his breath.

Sonic spotted him and flew after him.

"Hey!" He yelled, flying at him at a breakneck speed.

"Oh jeez!" Nega exclaimed before Sonic punched him across the face.

Nega was forcefully thrown across the sugar sprinkled sky and crashed into one of the stands at the Sugar Rush Raceway.

"You're losing your grip, Nega." Sonic taunted.

"...I maybe down, but I'm not out!"

LAZER!

Nega turned into a laser and bounced all around heading for Diet Cola Mountain, attempting to escape from Sonic.

* * *

Tails, Felix, and Flash had arrived at Game Central Station after sometime, giving Tails and Felix a chance to explain everything that has happened to Flash.

"So the other me is absorbing code from other games to become stronger? And he was using me to get the code he needed to separate from me?"

"Exactly." Tails said.

"Well, thank creation that the Station is still okay." Felix stated upon leaving the portal.

"Where is everyone?" Flash asked,noticing the stillness and silence of the area.

"In their games, taking shelter." Tails said.

In a flash of blue light, the Surge Protector appeared in front of the three.

"The virus left Hero's Duty and entered Sugar Rush. If it's anything like the Cy-bug outbreak, then I don't think this will end well."

"Sugar Rush? That's Vanellope's game!" Flash said, shocked.

He started sprinting toward the portal for Sugar Rush while occasionally crackling into binary.

"Flash! Wait for us!" Tails shouted.

Tails grabbed Felix by the hand and lifted off from the ground, hurrying to keep up with Flash. Flash wouldn't slow down for anything. He even ignored climbing onto the cherry train and just ran through the electrical cord to reach the game. The only thing on his mind was keeping Vanellope safe from the virus. Upon entering the game and after running along down the rainbow bridge, Flash found some of the ground in the game starting to crumble like in Super Mario Bros. At the bottom of the bridge was Ralph lying on the ground, beaten and battered up.

"Ralph!" Flash shouted as he ran to his side. "Are you alright?"

"Flash!" Ralph smiled. "You're okay!"

"Never mind about me. Look at yourself!"

Tails and Felix caught up and landed right behind Flash.

"Oh my land, Ralph. You look horrible." Felix said.

"Thanks for the news flash, Felix." Ralph chuckled.

Felix grabbed his father's golden hammer with a chime and tapped Ralph's head with it. In an instant, Ralph's injuries were gone and he lifted himself to his feet.

"Thanks, brother." Ralph thanked Felix.

"Where's Sonic?" Tails asked.

"He went off chasing after the virus. I hope Vanellope's safe." Ralph answered.

Felix took a look around the Sugar Rush Kingdom to see that it was completely deserted. Not a program or NPC in sight.

"Where is everyone?" He asked.

"Hiding maybe?" Ralph suggested.

Flash jogged to the top of a Jell-O hill and scanned the area. Heading for Diet Cola Mountain was a purple laser and a golden light chasing after it.

"I see Sonic!" He shouted.

Flash hopped down to the ground to the others.

"He's chasing the other me, heading for what looks like a giant soda bottle."

"Diet Cola Mountain." Ralph said. "That must be where Vanellope is hiding!" He gasped.

"Then let's get moving! Sonic might need our help!" Tails said.


	16. Chapter 16: Ripped Code

From within the mountain, Vanellope could hear a rumbling from the outside. The sound was getting closer and she was scared to find out if it was coming from Nega. Nevertheless, she kept a cool head and remained calm. The noise seemed to be coming from the north side of the mountain. Vanellope decided to go to the north wall and peek out from the mountain's transparent skin, but was stopped by Winchell.

"Ms. President, what are you doing?" The chocolate eclair officer asked.

"You're not actually thinking of going out there, are you?" Asked Duncan.

"I'm just taking a peek outside." She said to assure them.

The two law enforcers reluctantly allowed her to survey the outside. Vanellope padded over to the north side of the mountain and slowly inched her right eye to the outside of the wall. She saw two hedgehogs flying around, fighting each other, one purple, one gold. The gold one punched the purple into a large green gumdrop. The purple sprang out of the gumdrop and shot lasers at the gold. Vanellope quickly retreated back inside the mountain and quietly called over Winchell, Duncan, and Sour Bill.

"We have to get everyone out of here. Sonic is fighting that jerk and all the ruckus might cause the Mentos to fall. I don't want to risk everyone's safety." She whispered.

"Of course, Ms. President." Winchell and Duncan saluted at once.

The four of them dispersed and organized all of the racers and citizens, which took a few minutes and the commotion outside was growing stronger. Everyone was assembled on the south side of the mountain.

"Okay! Now all three of you are going to lead everyone out of the game into Game Central Station. I'll stay and make sure that the virus doesn't come around the mountain." She ordered.

"But..." Sour Bill started, but wouldn't finish because he knew that Vanellope wouldn't change her mind by the determined look on her face. "...Okay."

"Go now!" She ordered.

Winchell and Duncan hurried everyone out of the mountain and herded them to the portal with Sour Bill keeping watch in the back. Vanellope went back to the north side to keep a watch on Sonic and Nega.

* * *

Ralph, Felix, Tails, and Flash dashed through the layer cake fields and over the chocolate-covered hills to make their way to help Sonic out. Flash and Ralph were the most worried about Vanellope. Both of them hoped that she was out of danger, away from Nega.

_"Kid, I hope you're smart enough not to pick a fight with this guy."_ Ralph thought.

_"I'm coming, Vanellope. I'll find you."_ Flash thought.

The four saw that they were nearing closer and closer to the mountain. Along with it were two golden and purple streaks of light, chasing each other around occasionally knocking into each other.

"Sonic!" Tails shouted.

"Guys! Stay away from here!" Sonic yelled.

Vanellope listened from within the safety of the mountain and recognized a voice that just called for Sonic.

_"Tails?"_ She thought.

She took a glimpse outside of her sanctuary and saw Tails coming, followed by Felix, Ralph, and...

"FLASH!" Vanellope screamed with overwhelming joy.

Flash, her best friend that she lost, was right there along with her other friends. She bursted out of the transparent walls and was crying tears of joy as she ran towards him.

"Vanellope?"

Flash turned his head to the source of the voice and saw Vanellope rushing toward him. He started running over to her, ready to greet his friend that he never meant to leave.

"Vanny!" He shouted.

"KID! LOOK OUT!" Ralph bellowed.

Before Vanellope and Flash could even come near each other, Nega had grabbed Vanellope by her hoodie and whisked her off with him.

"Vanny!" Flash yelled in concern and shock.

"Hey! Lemme go!" Vanellope demanded as she struggled to get free.

"Aww! Look at this sweet little reunion. The gang's all here." Nega chuckled.

"Put her down, Nega! She's got nothing to do with this!" Sonic demanded, threatening to charge into him.

"Hold it right there, Sonic. Move one inch and the kid'll be code faster than you can say 'Game Over'." Nega said.

Sonic gritted his teeth. Vanellope tried to glitch out of Nega's grasp, but Nega would always anticipate where she would glitch and grab her.

"Flash! Help me!" She pleaded.

Nega laughed, mockingly. "Really!? What can that filthy glitch do?"

Flash was terrified. His best friend was in danger of being deleted and he could do nothing to help. He felt useless.

"Now, if there are no objections..."

Nega charged at Sonic without warning and forced his free hand right into Sonic's chest.

"AAAHH!"

"SONIC!" Everyone shouted.

Sonic's model flickered and sparked into golden pixels and binary before his Super form faded. Nega twisted his hand and retracted his arm from Sonic and held a bright blue orb of pure code. Sonic started falling until Tails grabbed his hand and gently lowered him to the ground. Nega absorbed the orb, growing even more powerful.

"Sonic! Are you okay?" Tails asked, desperate to know that he was alright.

Sonic's pixels were scrambling wildly and he groaned in pain, unable to answer.

"What did you do to him!?" Ralph yelled.

"I ripped his source code out of him. Now he's another glitch just like the worthless scrap himself." Nega answered smugly.

Tails lifted Sonic up off the ground and distanced himself from Nega.

_"This can't be happening!"_ Flash screamed in his head.

He wanted to believe that this was another nightmare. But everything was all too real to be in his head. Flash felt like he needed to do something.

_"But what can an incomplete beta like me do?"_ He thought. _"I'm powerless."_

Then, a thought occurred to him. Flash isn't powerless. He had powers all along, though using them can cause great risk to himself. Yet with very few options available, Flash knew it was his best bet. He had to save Vanellope if no one else would. He doesn't care what'll happen to him just as long as she's safe. Flash aimed his hand at Nega while his back was turned and willed himself to shoot a cyan laser at his back, while also causing his code to get slightly damaged. It was a direct hit.

"AH!"

Nega let go of Vanellope and she screamed, shutting her eyes, awaiting her doom. Flash rushed underneath her and caught her in his arms. Vanellope slowly opened her eyes to see that Flash had saved her from falling.

"Flash!" She shouted as she gave him a tight hug.

Flash had to cut the embrace short and he put Vanellope down.

"Vanny, run back to Ralph right now." He said.

"But Flash..."

"Go!"

Vanellope paused a moment and ran off back to Ralph as she was told to do. She hoped that Flash would stay safe. Nega landed on the ground, giving Flash a cold stare. Flash felt a cold chill crawl under his pixels that caused him to flicker from fright. The sight of his complete opposite in front of him was terrifying.

"You dare to try to fight back against me?!" He growled. After a moment, he regained his composure and smirked. "Well...who am I to turn down a death wish?"

Nega sped through the air like a bullet toward Flash and was about to punch him. Flash felt his heart jump and, through complete instinct, shut his eyes and willed his pixels to move to the side. Instead of punching Flash, Nega punched though a giant gumdrop. When Flash opened his eyes, he looked at where Nega ended up and remembered that he can glitch. Vanellope taught him everything about glitching and now he could use it to his advantage.

"You got lucky that time!" Nega shouted, after pulling his hand out of the gumdrop.

He flew at Flash again and Flash began to run away from him.

"Aww! Come on! Running away is low, even for a glitch like you." Nega taunted as he chased after him around Diet Cola Mountain.

Nega shot lasers at Flash from the air in hopes of tripping him up, but Flash quick-stepped out of the way of each laser. Flash readied himself before shooting his own lasers at Nega, causing himself to cringing from the twinge of pain that temporarily ran through him. One of the lasers hit Nega's left arm and stolen code broke free.

A small bit of code re-entered Sonic and the pain from his code being ripped out lessened. Sonic struggled to get to his feet since his body was still glitchy and unstable.

"How are you feeling, Sonic?" Tails asked.

"I...d0n't kn0w...100101...I've never...felt this way...01011...bef0re." He answered .

"Can you go Super? Flash can't fight the virus by himself." Tails explained.

Sonic tried to used the Chaos Emeralds to achieve his super form, but Sonic yelled in pain as he glitched more wildly.

"Ah! I...0111...can't! Flash...is 0n his 0wn." Sonic said, grimly.


	17. Chapter 17: Virus 821

Chaos was ensuing within the world of Sugar Rush. Nega was out for code and was hot in pursuit of Flash, who was doing everything in his power to try and fight him back. Sonic had his source code ripped out of him and his damaged code was now incomplete like Flash's, only more severe. Sonic could no longer become Super and fight Nega, since his faulty programming wouldn't let him. Vanellope, Ralph, Felix, and Tails could only watch from the sidelines, since they weren't strong enough to match Nega's strength.

"Will Flash be okay, Ralph?" Vanellope asked the wrecker.

"I don't know, kid..." Ralph answered.

Flash kept on running while taking aim at Nega to shoot at him. He shot a cyan laser from his palm, which landed a direct hit on Nega. Nega was more than frustrated. He was furious at the fact that this incomplete beta was giving him a hard time.

"Alright! That's it!" Nega yelled.

He flew forward until he was right above Flash.

CUBE!

Nega transformed into a purple cube and slammed himself hoping to crush Flash. Flash gasped before his pixels scattered and reassembled themselves a few feet ahead of where he was. However, the shockwave from the cube landing on the ground was so powerful that it pushed Flash forward and he tripped. He tumbled on the sugar-coated turf until his body skidded to a stop. Flash was about to pick himself up from the ground, but then...

HOVER!

He couldn't get himself to move. Flash was frozen right where he laid. Nega had a hold of him using his temporary telekinesis. He lifted Flash from the ground and forcefully pounded him into a solid wall of Diet Cola Mountain. Nega repeatedly hammered his immobilized body into the wall until the Green Hover wore off. Flash, with his pixels sparking cyan dimly, slumped to the ground with most of his energy spent. Nega walked up right in front of him and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off his feet. Flash could barely struggle.

"Flash!" Vanellope shouted.

She began running over to help Flash, but...

SPIKES!

Nega launched a dozen large spikes into the sky, which struck the ground surrounding Diet Cola Mountain, deleting it, leaving a floating island in the middle. Vanellope stopped in her tracks when she realized that she couldn't possibly get across the infinite abyss between her and the mountain. She could only watch as Nega had his way with Flash.

"Let...me...0101...g0." He groaned.

"I'll let you go alright. After you're nothing but code." Nega said with a sly grin.

He, then, tighten his grip, to which Flash reacted with a yelp. He let a ripple of static flow through his model, which flowed onto Nega's arm and through him. Flash opened an eye and glared at Nega's lifeless, empty eyes. For a second, a pair of crystal blue eyes flickered onto Nega's model. The eyes looked scared and pleaded for help. Flash felt Nega's grip on him twitch and struggle.

"What? Why can't I..." Nega said, realizing whatever was happening to him. "Y0u little...Gah!"

Nega released Flash and flickered into purple pixels. He held his head as if trying to fight another force.

"N0!...011101...Y0u are m1ne t0 c0ntr0l!...0101...H-Help...me, F1a$h..."

Some of Nega's pixels brightened to pure white. Nega was trying hard to suppress whatever was causing him to go insane. Flash was speechless.

"P-Plea$e...0110...$HUT UP!...1011..."

Flash didn't know who was asking for help, but causing Nega to glitch seemed to be what it wanted. Flash leapt at Nega, grabbed his arm, and purposely stirred every bit and byte in his model to glitch, which, in turn, was passed onto Nega. Nega writhed in resistance to the force that was fighting him, but he was obviously losing. Slowly, all of Nega's pixels transformed into white while his form had also changed. As the static settled, Nega's fur was now completely white and his quills turned downward, like Flash's. The black mark on his chest faded and his shoes turned white.

"Tails, isn't that the model for Flash that we found in Nega's code?" Felix asked.

"Yeah, it is! What's going on?" Tails responded.

The transformed hedgehog opened his crystal blue eyes and stood up, facing Flash.

"Flash, thank you." He said.

"Who...Who are you?" Flash asked.

"I am the real Nega Flash. The program you thought was Nega Flash isn't who you think he is."

"What are you talking about? And what do you mean that you're the real Nega?"

"I don't have much time to explain, so I'll make it quick. I am the original Nega Flash that was programmed to be your total opposite. I was there when both of us were being programmed. At the time, you were still in a very early stage, but I was mostly complete. We were going to be combine into one code, but that was when disaster struck. A virus had infected my file before we merged. It's called Virus 821. Our programmers and developers had no way of safely removing the virus without damaging both our codes, so we had to be scrapped from Sonic Colors. However, we, along with the virus, were left in the game's code. During the entire time we were dormant in the code, Virus 821 was slowly feeding on both our codes, but more on mine than yours. He took my model and used it as his own since viruses don't have models or sprites. I had to use your backstory model in order to have a body. The virus had complete control over me and he's the cause of everything!"

The real Nega had static ripple over him and his model began to transform again.

"He'$ c0ming back!...1011...Virus 821 is gaining c0ntr0l of me...01...F1ash, y0u have to destr0y the virus...SavĘ the ãrćāde...You are a real character!"

Nega's model had taken form again, which was still sparking purple binary.

"Ah...That's better...0101..." Virus 821 said. "D0n't you just l0ve a good twist?" He laughed.

Suddenly, the virus's model that he stole was further evolving. His muzzle had disappeared and in its place was a long mouth that stretched across his face that had sharp teeth. His black mark took a more ominous and frightening design. His hands transformed into three sharp claws with spikes protruding from where the gloves' cuffs used to be. His shoes changed into feet with two clawed toes. Flash was terrified by the monstrous, more feral form that the virus took.

Sonic was awestruck. He knew that Flash wouldn't be able to stand up to the virus in that state.

"Flash...needs help." Sonic said.

"But Sonic, how can you help when you're like this?" Tails asked.

"I can't help him, but I know something that can." Sonic answered.

The seven Chaos Emeralds flickered into being around Sonic.

"I hope you were programmed with a Super form Flash." Sonic said. "Chaos...Control!"

The Emeralds dispersed and traveled across the sky, over the abyss to Flash. Flash was surprised when the Chaos Emeralds surrounded him. He looked over in Sonic's direction. Tails waved at him.

"You can do it, Flash!" He cheered.

"There's no stopping you!" Sonic yelled.

Vanellope waved at him from Rah's shoulder to get his attention.

"Show that creep who's boss!" She shouted.

"Give him a run for his money!" Ralph yelled.

"You're San Frantastic!" Felix cheered.

Flash felt something new bubble up within him. He didn't feel afraid, or angry, or sad anymore. It was something good, something meaningful. Something that made him feel warm and that everything will be alright. Being surrounded by his friends helped him feel...hope.

**_UNLIMITED COLORS!_**

The Chaos Emeralds shined brighter than the sun and Flash flickered into a new form. A Super form. His fur turned into a brilliant white, along with his shoes and his eyes changed from golden amber to crimson red. Different parts of his body glowed a different color. Flash could feel the all the color powers energizing him. Pink, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Purple, Violet, and White. The light from the Emeralds faded and Flash's pixels rippled into rainbow binary. Flash was now Spectral Flash.

"I'm ready."


	18. Chapter 18: Colors vs Virus

**Sorry for the huge delay, but for me, choreographing a fight is very difficult. But from here forward, it might be a little easier to write.**

* * *

This was the strongest that Flash had ever felt ever since he was activated. He stood there, face to face with the force, the malware, the virus that had plagued his code for a year and endangered his friends and everyone in the arcade, including Nega, the real Nega Flash, who suffered the most damage from Virus 821. It felt weird thinking about it, but Nega was a friend too, possibly even a brother.

If it was just Flash facing 821, he would be completely terrified of the being in front of him. But this time was different. Flash had the power of the Chaos Emeralds, enriching his programming with power and confidence and, more importantly, his friends, who shaped him into the beta...no, the character he is and was meant to be.

Vanellope stood on Ralph's shoulder and watched, hoping that Flash would be able to best his viral double.

"Please be careful, Flash." She whispered, with her hands clasped together and a ripple of blue static rolling through her.

With his still functioning code, Flash made his first move. He accelerated at Virus 821, in his corrupted Nega model, at a breakneck speed.

"0h, PleA$e." The virus scoffed, as he flickered into purple binary.

He readied himself for a counterattack, but just as Flash was about to strike him, Flash disappeared into multicolored pixels.

"wHat!?" He exclaimed.

Suddenly, Flash reassembled himself behind 821 and punched him from behind with amazing force. 821 was propelled forward toward Diet Cola Mountain, but as he was about to slam into the chocolaty wall, he maneuvered himself to fly upwards and he landed a distance away from Flash.

"Hmph. N0t bAD...f0r a g1itCh. BuT you'll nEEd m0Re tHaN that."

821 immediately fired a purple laser from his palm at Flash to catch him off guard, but Flash was ready and he fired his own cyan laser.

"Huh?" Flash thought. "My code...It doesn't hurt."

Flash could feel that his code was completely intact. There was no crunching or cracking in his 1s and 0s. Flash's Super form was, in fact, completely programmed, untouched by the virus, which meant that Flash has unlimited use of his powers.

The two beams met and caused a blast that covered the vicinity in smoke. 821 couldn't see anything farther than his own claws, neither could Flash. Flash quietly hovered through the smoke, taking caution and relying on his senses.

"WhERe Are ¥0u, mY liTtlE Ma1FuncT10n?" 821 eerily sang.

Flash turned his head towards the direction of the voice and managed to make out a dim shadow. He saw an opportunity.

CUBE!

Flash's fur turned deep blue as his entire right arm transformed into a boxy, cube arm with incredible mass. He charged at the shadow and successfully punched 821 into the sky above the smoke cloud, while also freeing some ripped code.

ROCKET! BURST!

Flash transformed into an orange rocket and blasted off upwards, glitching to move faster. The moment he struck 821, his form dispersed into a powerful blast. Code scattered and 821 fell before pulling up. Flash descended to his level.

"Oka¥..." 821 panted. "I'll pLAy a1Ong..."

$p1Ke$!

Purple spikes grew from 821's claws and were shot in rapid succession at Flash. Flash twisted, turned, and glitched around, dodging them as they came.

SPIKES!

His fur turned pink as he grew his own pink spikes from his quills, which shot from his back and aimed towards 821. 821 lifted his left arm and in his palm, a violet void was conjured, which absorbed all of Flash's spikes.

"TH1nk fÄsT!" 821 shouted.

£aZEr!

He transformed into a purple laser and shot himself at Flash. Flash glitched out of the way, but then the virus bounced off of nothing and changed trajectory back toward Flash. He collided with Flash at full force and changed direction downward, driving him into the solid chocolate ground.

"Flash!" Vanellope shouted, after she flinched from watching Flash get pounded.

Flash kicked 821 off of him and hovered out of the crater that formed from the impact.

"My turn." He said.

He glared in the virus's direction and his fur turned into cyan. A transparent cyan cube flickered into being trapping 821 inside.

"ReA11¥? ¥ou ThiNK thIs wi11 $t0p mE?" He laughed.

821 kicked the wall of the cube, but it didn't break. He punched it, but it was still solid.

"WhAt'$ ThIs?"

LAZER!

Flash transformed into his lazer form and aimed toward the cube that trapped 821. The cube shrank slightly smaller so that it was a bit bigger than 821. Flash sped off and entered the cube, bouncing off of its transparent cyan walls, landing a torrent of hits on the virus. Finally, the cube shattered and Flash reverted to his Super form. 821 lay on his back, shocked and insulted by the fact that he was being beaten by Flash. The mere thought left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Ęn0Ugh gAmE$!" He shouted as he got up to his feet. "£et'$ śEE H0₩ wE11 you ¢aN hANdle the NeGa ₩i$pS!"

Flash's heart sank at the sound of these words.

V0iD!

821 curled up into a ball and started spinning faster and faster until he transformed into a violet black hole, that began to consume everything within range. Portions of the ground and debris were getting sucked into the singularity, getting torn apart into code for him to absorb. As he consumed, he grew larger and the force of his pull grew stronger. Flash struggled to keep his feet on the ground and was in danger of getting absorbed. Though he had access to the Violet Void, Flash didn't want to risk losing control of himself and causing more harm than good.

DRILL!

Flash's fur turned bright yellow and his hands turned into drills. He burrowed his hands deep into the ground, holding him down to keep from being pulled in. After a few moments of trying to stay grounded, the Violet Void wore off and 821 reverted to his corrupted form.

FrENz¥!

He immediately flickered into the Purple Frenzy form and charged toward Flash, while he was still stuck to the ground. Flash sparked into cyan pixels and got his hands free before settling his glitch. He jumped up and suspended himself in the air, out of the virus's reach.

"Ha! You'Re afrAiD, Are'Nt ¥0u?" He mocked. "You'Re afrAiD of y0urSelf, ju$t as mU¢h aS ¥0u'rE aFRa1d of Me. AdM1t iT."

Flash hated to admit it, but he was right. He was worried that using the Nega Wisp powers would cause him to be as out of control as the virus himself.

"Come on, Flash!" Tails shouted from across the abyss.

"You're...better than that guy!" Sonic yelled, still weak from his fractured code. "Don't doubt...yourself!"

"Please, Flash! I know you can do it!" Vanellope encouraged.

That was all Flash needed to reinvigorate his confidence. Just knowing his friends are still there, by his side in a way, puts him at ease.

"Okay...I've got it." Flash thought.

He closed his eyes, concentrated on transforming. His fur slowly turned dark purple, much like Nega Flash. To anyone else, Flash might have been mistaken as Nega, but he opened his eyes and they were still their shade of crimson.

FRENZY!

"₩HAt!?" 821 exclaimed.

Flash, then, transformed into the Purple Frenzy and fell downwards on top of 821. Flash stayed focused, unwilling to give in to the negative vibe that lurked in his mind while in this form. He attacked, using his jagged jaw to maul on 821 like a mad dog. 821, upon receiving damage, was ejected from his form, flickering as purple static while code escaped his body. Flash continued to devour through 821, though his frame was intangible at random intervals, until the color power had been spent. Flash, back into his Super form, was fatigued from the willpower he had spent to keep from losing control. He turned to 821, who was weak, on his knees, flickering wildly, code flying free as he grew weaker.

"I'm not...afraid of you anymore." Flash said as he stepped toward the corrupted virus. "I'm no glitch and I'm definitely no virus either. Neither me, nor Nega Flash." He stood over the virus.

"N0t a g1It¢h!?...WhAt a...j0Ke!" 821 laughed, trembling his angry clawed fist. "¥ou'Re n0thIng $peC1aL. Y0u'rE juSt a...Fi1tH¥...£ittLe..." He suddenly broke apart into purple binary and reassembled in the air hovering. "G£ITCH!" In one swift strike, 821 stabbed his right claws into Flash's chest.

"FLASH!" Everyone yelled.

Flash flickered into multicolored pixels before slowly raising his hand and shooting a laser at 821's face. 821 was blown away, ripped away from Flash as he tumbled backwards a few yards. Flash fell onto one knee, his frame scrambled and a scar in his chest that looked like his model was cracked with 1s and 0s floating around within him.

821 got up on his feet and held in his claws a rainbow colored orb of code. Absorbing it caused him to rejuvenate his energy. He began to laugh maniacally.

"CaN ¥oU guEs$ WhAt I jusT To0k from You?" He asked.

Flash felt it. It hurt. It was the same pain he had always suffered. All the color powers were ripped out of his code. Flash looked at his hands and they sparked and fizzled as they fired a laser, but the torn code caused even more excruciating pain than ever before.

"ThAt's r1Ght!" He sang in a sing-songy voice. "YoU can'T u$e yoUr po₩eRs WithOut rIskIng y0Ur$elf cRAshiNg. IT's 0vEr!"

"n0...It'$...noT." Flash groaned, in a distorted glitchy voice. "I...cAn sTi11...fIghT!"

"I'D l0ve to See ho₩ lonG yoU lAst BeFore I haVe you bEggIng f0r mercy."

* * *

Within the confines of the code room of the Sonic the Hedgehog game, a code block with the name "Flash the Hedgehog" was suffering extreme damage. The code was shooting cyan sparks wildly and it was damaged by many cracks that were growing larger. A window in the code opened automatically, showing a flashing red message.

"DANGER!"

"DANGER!"


	19. Chapter 19: It's Over

"It all comes down to this." Flash thought. "My friends are counting on me."

Flash, with his code in critical condition and his powers corrupted, now has the weight of the entire arcade on his shoulders.

"If I can't beat him now, the arcade is finished."

"Y0u cãN't po$SiBly lasT l0ng eNouGh to b3aT me." 821 noted.

"0h yeaH?...Try mE." Flash panted.

"G£aDl¥ ."

821 disappeared in a stream of purple pixels and reassembled behind Flash. He was about to claw him across his face, but Flash glitched, becoming temporarily intangible. 821 clawed through nothing but scattered rainbow binary. Flash pulled himself together and turned around punching 821 in his chest, propelling him away. 821 had his purple pixels scrambled before he scraped the ground with his clawed feet to brake and jumped forward at Flash...

CUBE!

...transforming his arm into a block and punched Flash's face, sending him flying. Flash took a few seconds to regain his composure to realize that he was falling into the infinite abyss that surrounded the floating island they fought on.

"Flash! Pull up! Pull up!" Tails shouted.

Flash then maneuvered himself to gain altitude and fly back to the island. He felt like he was beginning to tire out and that he was pushing his code to the limit, but he couldn't stop. He wouldn't. There was too much at stake to stop. Flash landed a few yards away from 821, awaiting his next move. 821 fired a laser from his palm at Flash and Flash retaliated immediately with his own laser. The pain was instantaneous and agonizing, more so than before. He groaned as he held back tears. The two lasers fought each other, both with great force, but Flash couldn't gather the strength to keep his laser strong and faltered after a few moments. The full force of 821's laser was dealt onto Flash and...

*CRACK*

...he fell on his back after flying a few feet backwards. His pixels sparked and crackled as he struggled to lift himself to his feet. Flash felt a burning sensation below his chest. He took a glimpse at where the burn was coming from and saw that the scar on his model had grown. A small web of cracks had formed the lower right of his scar. Flash gently passed his hand over the cracks and small pieces of his model's skin had fallen off like glass.

"Oh my land..." Felix gasped, holding a hand over his mouth.

Vanellope looked away and planted her face in Ralph's neck. She couldn't bear to see her friend get torn apart.

821 smirked. "It won't be long now."

Sp1Ke$!

He began shooting purple spikes from his spines that locked on Flash. Flash, though exhausted from the toll on his body and code, flew forward toward 821, still willing to fight. He glitched left and right, dodging the storm of spikes, that was aimed at him. He curled up into a ball and quickly revved up a powerful spin dash. He released and slammed into 821, who scrambled into binary upon impact and was knocked into the sky, now airborne. 821 halted and transformed his arms into blocky fists. He fell towards the ground, aiming to crush Flash. Flash looked up and just stood there, watching with determined eyes. Just as 821 was less than an inch away from him, Flash dispersed into pixels and disappeared. 821's fists were planted in the ground and he struggled to pull them out. As the saccharine dust cleared, Flash reassembled behind the virus and kicked him across the back of his head. 821 fell forwards on his face before flickering into static.

Vanellope peeked out at the floating island to see how Flash was doing. She saw Flash standing upright and tall with the virus on the ground, battered up.

"WOOHOO! Way to go, Flash!" She cheered, gleefully jumping on Ralph's shoulder.

821 growled, his clawed fist trembling in rage. Even with his code as messed up and scrambled as it was, Flash was still trumping him. He realized now that the one thing he wanted more than to be the most powerful virus was to make Flash suffer. He wanted to make him feel slow, agonizing pain to the point where he's nothing but code. An idea came to mind. He grinned a razor toothy smile.

"Let's start with his friends." He thought.

He caught a glimpse of Ralph and Vanellope on his shoulder, cheering Flash on. They were a bit distanced from the others. Maybe by two or three yards.

"ThE bRat'$ f1rST." He whispered.

Flash saw 821 raise his claw toward where his friends are and his instincts kicked in. He blasted across the sky towards his friends while at the same time, 821 fired a laser at Vanellope. The laser sped by Flash and Flash had to keep his speed up, so he glitched and glitched to catch up and get ahead.

" Ralph! Vanellope! Watch out!" Sonic yelled.

Vanellope gasped and she shut her eyes. Ralph grabbed her tiny body in his hands and held her close, turning his back on the laser, hoping to shield her. Just before the laser was about to strike Ralph and Vanellope, Flash caught up with the head of the laser and placed himself in between, just a few feet before it struck. Flash blasted his own laser to fight off the other, but the recoil of the damaged code caused his laser to fail and the opposing beam hit him with an explosive blast, covering Ralph and Vanellope in a veil of smoke.

The two heard the blast, but realized that they were alright. Ralph released Vanellope and turned around, with Vanellope clutching his bulky leg.

"Ralph! Vanellope!" Felix called. "Are you alright?"

Ralph coughed. "We're fine, Felix!"

The smoke slowly began to clear and Vanellope could barely see Flash, floating just over the edge of the cliff, over the abyss. As the picture became clearer, she saw something that caused her heart to sink in horror and sadness.

"Flash!" She screamed.

Flash's model was covered in cracks, which resulted from trying to use his laser. Parts of his model's skin, like part of the left side of his head, his right hand, and some parts of his legs and shoes, were completely gone, leaving behind only a wireframe and exposed cyan binary. Flash struggled to keep himself airborne as he scrambled into static and sparks of many colors flew from his damaged frame.

Vanellope ran forward, closer to him, concerned.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"...Ngh...I-I'm...fine..." Flash hoarsely responded.

"Flash, you've gotta stop. Look at yourself. You can't beat him." She stated.

"...I...¢aN't stop...Not now...I'm s0 cL0$e...Sorry, Vanny..."

Flash flew off back towards the island and 821.

"Flash! Come back!" Vanellope cried.

"...I've got something to take care of first." Flash thought.

He soon landed back on the island, right in front of 821, who was back on his feet, furious.

"That...wAs thE lA$t Stra₩, g1ItCh! ¥oU've mEddleD wIth m¥ p1aNs...F0r the lAst time! I $hould hAve Bla$ted you int0 c0de, ₩hen I hAd thE Chance! But n0w, it's 0ver! I'M F1N1$HING ₩HAT I $TARTED!"

L1M1TLE$S NeGAt1VIT¥!

821 sprang up and soared high above the cotton candy clouds of Sugar Rush.

V01D! MAX1MuM DR1VE! FRENZY! MAX1MuM Dr1VE!

821 began to charge dangerously large amounts of negative Hyper-Go-On energy. The sky began to grow dark with the only light coming from the purple and violet glow radiating from 821 and the pastry ground was beginning to rumble. Sonic, Tails, Felix, Ralph, and Vanellope all lost balance and fell to the ground from the magnitude.

UNLIMITED COLORS!

Flash left the ground and climbed up to the virus's level.

"This is it...Time to end it...I don't care what happens to me..." Flash thought, as he looked down at his friends. "...Just so long as they're safe."

LAZER! DRILL! SPIKES! ROCKET! CUBE! HOVER! BURST! VOID! FRENZY!

As Flash charges Hyper-Go-On energy, his frame flickers and sparks as his code begins to get torn apart. Although the pain is reaching its maximum, Flash refuses to stop. The sky begins to light up as Flash starts to glow bright white and many other colors spark and fly from his body. Flash yells as he feels his code getting crushed from its incompletion.

"No! Flash! Stop!" Vanellope pleaded, tears beginning to fall from her eyes.

U£T1MATE VIRAL BLA$TeR!

FINAL COLOR BLASTER!

In the blink of an eye, a shockwave rolled from in between Flash and Virus 821 and in an instant both slammed into the other, fighting each other to decide the battle. The weaker one who faltered would be destroyed in less than a second.

*CRACK-CRACK*

Flash felt the tearing in his code grow worse and worse.

"Ngh...AUGH!"

"ARe Y0U ThAT Den$E!?" 821 shouted. "IF Y0u KeEP tH1S uP, YoU'LL DesTROY U$ B0Th!"

"I...DON'T...CARE!" Flash declared.

*CRACK*

* * *

In the code room, the code that read "Flash the Hedgehog" was trembling violently as the cracks that covered it shot cyan sparks. The glowing green wires that connected it to the rest of the network began to dim. The code jolted and one of the wires came loose and it's glow faded. A window opened in the code flashing red.

"CRITICAL!"

"CRITICAL!"

* * *

The cracks on Flash's model grew and bits of his frame began to fall off. Flash's energy was ebbing away and 821 was getting the upper hand as he pushed towards him.

Sonic watched hopefully, Tails held his hands up in front of him, shaking them anxiously, Felix held his cap in his hands, hoping to Creation that everything will be alright, Ralph let his massive arms hang on his sides as he watched, putting his faith in Flash, and Vanellope simply stared up at Flash, tears falling from her rosy cheeks, hoping with all her glitchy code that Flash will win.

She barely met Flash the day before, but she could immediately make friends with him because he was like her in some ways. He wasn't a glitch, but he was different from everyone else with his incomplete code. She wanted to help him to feel like he was a real character and he is. They formed a bond as they played together, raced together, and as Vanellope taught him to glitch. They grew as close as a brother and sister.

"YOU CAN DO IT, FLASH!" She yelled.

These hopeful words rang into Flash's head and refilled him with the energy he needed. He tossed aside the thought of the burning in his code and focused on 821. Flash lifted his hands and grabbed the virus's shoulders.

"WhAt the...? WHaT ArE Y0u D0inG?" 821 demanded to know.

Flash glitched as much as he could, scrambling all his pixels and passing it on to 821. 821 sparked purple and white binary as he grew vulnerable. Half of Nega Flash's frame appeared and took partial control 821.

"F1a$h! N0W!" He shouted.

With absolutely every drop of energy he had left, Flash curled up into a ball and sliced through 821 and Nega Flash's shared model, through the virus's core viral code. Purple pixels had rolled through 821's model and slowly turned white. A storm of code was released and an explosion blasted producing a radiant white light and everything within Sugar Rush was washed with light.

Flash flickered out of his Super form and started to fall from the sky. He didn't feel any pain at all. In fact, he felt better than he has ever had since his activation.

* * *

Flash's code began to settle within the code room. His code was covered end to end with deep cracks and only two wires remained connected. It's glow then faded as the two wires disconnected themselves and its screen had flickered on and off until it faded to black.

* * *

Flash closed his eyes and let a smile creep onto his face.

"...I...did...it..."

He didn't feel himself hit the ground.


	20. Chapter 20: Gone

The entirety of Sugar Rush was blanketed in a bright white light that could be seen from within Game Central Station. It was too bright to see anything farther than on inch ahead. Code that the virus absorbed was released and flew through the air to return to their original programmed homes. Most of the blue binary fled from the Sugar Rush portal and split off into three other games: Super Mario Bros., Hero's Duty, and Sonic the Hedgehog. The denizens of Sugar Rush, who were taking refuge at the Station, noticed the bright light from their game and the free-flying code. The surge protector appeared next to the portal in a crackle of electricity.

"Okay. Good news for for everyone from Sugar Rush. My surge sensors tell me that the virus was deleted. It's now safe for everyone to return to your game." He announced.

A loud cheer filled the Station as the Sugar Rushans began boarding the cherry red train back to their game.

* * *

Within the Super Mario Bros. game, two brothers were sitting on the edge of a warp pipe in an empty black void where a mansion once stood. The younger brother, who wore green, was crying, while the older brother in red was comforting him.

"Hey. Hey. It's okay, bro." The older brother said.

"But Mario, the whole mansion is-a gone! And all the ghosts went to live at the castle."

"Maybe we can a-fix it or build a new one. We're a-lucky that no one wanted to a-play Luigi's Mansion today."

A rumble came from within the pipe and it sounded like something was about to exit on their end.

"Uh oh." Mario said.

Mario and Luigi were tossed into the air by a torrent of code that exploded from the pipe.

"MAMMA MIA!"

"MARIO! HELP!" Luigi shouted.

The code reintegrated itself into the game and formed solid ground that the brothers safely fell onto. A forest of dead trees and a dark cloudy sky flickered into existence and, in the middle of the forest, a gloomy, ominous mansion was built.

"My mansion!"

Another rumbling came from the pipe and a horde of ghosts and Boos flew from the pipe and soared across the dark sky into the mansion.

"It's back! IT'S BACK!" Luigi cried tears of joy all over Mario.

"Well, looks like you're-a gonna need this." Mario said as he pulled a vacuum cleaner out of nowhere.

* * *

Within Hero's Duty, swarms of cy-bugs were running amok in the damaged wasteland after the virus left the game. The cy-bugs that remained multiplied and Calhoun pulled all her men together to fight them back. Since the tower was destroyed, the troops had no beacon to finish them off.

"Sarge! The cy-bugs are multiplying faster than we can hold them back!" A soldier shouted.

"Darn. At this rate, the cy-bugs will make their way into Game Central Station."

A large mass of cy-bugs were slowly marching their way towards the small battalion. Suddenly, streams of blue binary was flying in from the portal.

"Incoming!" Another soldier shouted.

"What is that!?"

"Code." Calhoun said, somewhat relived. "The blue speedster did it." She chuckled.

The code wrote itself into the game and formed the tower that was knocked down. With a flicker of static, the tip of the tower fired a bright column of light which was the beacon. The cy-bugs immediately stopped what they were doing and their multiple eyes flickered blue. Every single robotic insect turned their attention to the light that was presented to them and took off to enter their decided fate.

*zap zap zap*

Each cy-bug was destroyed by the hundreds until every one of them were destroyed. The soldiers cheered for their triumph and Calhoun couldn't help but give a smile.

* * *

At the entrance to Sonic the Hedgehog, at the very start of Green Hill Zone, two streams of code fled into the game. One stream gathered and formed a glowing blue orb of code. The other stream travelled all the way up to Tropical Resort, into Flash's room and gathered to form a glowing multicolored orb of code.

* * *

Back in Sugar Rush, the abyss that surrounded the island where Diet Cola Mountain stood disappeared behind ground that was rewritten into existence. The blinding light that washed the land had faded and from the sky fell a hedgehog with white fur, who was unconscious.

"Hey! That's gotta be the real Nega!" Sonic shouted.

Tails immediately sprang into action as he took off and soared through the sky to catch the plummeting hedgehog. He grabbed him by one of his arms and gently descended to the ground. Sonic, Felix, Ralph, and Vanellope scampered to where they landed. Tails laid Nega on his back while the others surrounded him. Nega groaned as he held his head and sat himself upright, white static rolling through him.

"Wow...ReM1nd me neVer t0 get infected by a v1rUs again..." He groaned, slightly nauseous.

"You're...Nega Flash?" Sonic asked, confused.

"Yeah. That's me. Really." Nega answered, dusting himself off.

"You don't look like him." Tails said.

"Oh, that's because the virus jacked my model. I wonder if..."

Purple binary washed over Nega as his model pixelated into his original model, purple fur and all. The others all jumped, slightly startled and surprised.

"Awesome! I've got my model back. But to be honest..."

White binary rolled over his form and he returned to Flash's white hedgehog model.

"I think I'll be sticking to this model. It's a lot more friendly looking than my real model."

"But, you're not at all like the virus that swept through the arcade." Felix pointed out.

"What? Just because I'm programmed to be the total opposite of Flash and act like a bad guy doesn't mean I have to be a bad guy." Nega said.

"I hear ya, brother." Ralph said in complete agreement

"Speaking of which, where is Flash?" Nega said, looking around for a trace of his doppelgänger.

Vanellope gasped. She immediately scanned the area to search for him.

"Flash! Flash! Where are you!?" She called out to him.

No answer.

"We've got to find him!" Vanellope insisted.

The others immediately joined in the search, each one calling for him, including Nega. Everyone went in separate directions to search. Vanellope started to worry.

"Please, be okay. Please, be okay." She repeated in her head.

She neared the base of Diet Cola Mountain when she spotted a cyan figure lying near the base. Tears immediately welled up in her hazel eyes.

"FLASH!"

She ran as fast as she could to Flash's side, with everyone else close behind. Flash was lying face down on the ground, beaten up with his model covered with cracks and gapes. His wireframe was exposed and the binary that floated within him was dull grey and stood still.

"Flash! Wake up! Please! Wake up!" Vanellope begged as she shook him, hoping that he would open his eyes.

Nothing.

"Come on, Flash! This isn't funny! Wake up!" She continued.

Still nothing.

The other friends had caught up with Vanellope and saw Flash in his unconscious state.

"Oh no..." Ralph said.

"Is he okay!?" Nega asked.

Vanellope couldn't answer. Her heart ached too much to be able to speak. Her face was already drenched in tears. She turned Flash over on his back and held him in a close hug, sobbing, holding onto the fading hope that he will wake up. Ralph knelt down next to Vanellope with open arms that she instantly jumped into. She cried on his shoulder and Ralph encouraged her to let het sadness out.

"It's okay, Vanellope. We're all gonna miss him." He said, holding back his own tears.

Sonic, Tails, Nega, and Felix hung their heads low in grief. After a few minutes of near silence, Vanellope had mostly calmed down and Ralph put her down.

"Come on." He said. "We better take him home."

Vanellope nodded in agreement. Ralph got up and gently lifted Flash, carrying him in his large hands. The six of them began to trek back to Game Central Station.


	21. Chapter 21: Making Amends

**A/N: Hey guys! Just wanted to give a heads up that right now I'm on a trip and I won't be back home for a bit more than two weeks. Updates will be sort of slow, but the story is almost done so I suppose it won't matter. Also I'm already almost finished with the next chapter so it'll be up very soon. So keep on reading and review, please. :)**

* * *

The excursion back to Game Central Station felt slow as Sonic, Tails, Nega, Felix, Vanellope, and Ralph, carrying Flash, were walking. As they neared the rainbow bridge, the Sugar Rush racers and spectators were making their way down the bridge back into the game. Sour Bill was among them and he saw Vanellope climbing the bridge's incline, along with the others.

"President Vanellope!" He shouted as he padded up to her. "I'm so relieved to see that you're okay."

"I'm fine, Bill." She said in a less than enthusiastic voice. "But I don't feel like racing on the Random Roster Race today."

"Are you sure?" Sour Bill asked, his voice beginning to fade to its usual droll, monotonous tone.

"Yeah, I am. Can you handle the announcements?"

"Sure...Okay."

"Thanks...I'll be back soon." Vanellope said, catching up to Ralph and the others as they were about to board the train to Game Central. Everyone got on and the train disembarked through the electric wire. Sonic groaned in discomfort and flickered into blue pixels.

"...O-Ow!" He exclaimed, shaking his head of dizziness.

"Sonic, your code is still damaged." Tails noted.

"Why is that? Shouldn't all the code the virus took be back where it belongs?" Felix asked.

"I don't know. But if we don't fix it before the arcade opens, we're probably gonna get unplugged." Sonic said, grimly.

Vanellope sat close next to Ralph, who still held Flash's lifeless frame in his hands. She stroke his fractured head before turning to Felix.

"Felix, can't you fix both Flash's and Sonic's codes with your hammer?" She asked.

"I'm...sorry, Vanny, but my hammer doesn't work on anything that was made in the real world." He answered.

Vanellope frowned and hung her head low, silently crying, before she felt an arm come around her and pulled her close. She looked up and next to her was Nega, giving a small smile. Aside from his white fur and blue eyes, he looked exactly like Flash. Vanellope hugged him, despite barely knowing him.

"I'm sorry." She struggled to say. "You were...hurt by the virus...too. I never thought that...you would be...just as nice as Flash was."

"Don't be sorry. I feel the same way you do. Flash was literally my other half. He was practically my little twin brother." Nega chuckled. "I just...wish we actually had the chance to...actually get to know each other."

"Sugar Rush train now arriving in Outlet 9. Welcome to Game Central Station." Said a voice on the intercom.

The station was more crowded than usual. Characters from every game were out in the station. It sounded like they were cheering.

"Attention to all characters, NPCs, and programs. The virus is destroyed so it is now safe leave your games!" Boomed the voice of the surge protector on the intercom.

A blast of cheers erupted as the group got off the train and entered the station. They slowly padded toward the portal for Sonic the Hedgehog. Characters who were close by noticed Ralph carrying Flash, walking along with the others. Some recognized Flash as the glitch at Tappers. Others recognized him as the virus back at the party.

"Hey. Isn't that the glitch kid?" Someone muttered.

"It's the virus!" Another shouted.

The cheering soon faded into murmurs of confusion and surprise. Every character in the station turned their attention to the group.

"He looks terrible."

"What happened to him?" Someone asks casually.

"I bet Sonic gave him the pummeling of his life."

"Uh...No. Y0u go+ iT all ₩r0ng, 'cause..." Sonic began, as a wave of blue static rolled across his frame.

Gasps from most characters filled the air as they were surprised by Sonic's sudden glitch.

"Sonic! You just...glitched." Said a tall character who was at the front of the crowd. He was probably from a wrestling or fighting game.

"Yeah, well, because my code was ripped out by the real..."

"That viral son of a glitch!" The character interrupted.

"Hey!" Vanellope shouted, offended by his insulting Flash.

"You all hear that!? That filthy glitch had just insured Sonic's game getting unplugged."

The crowd murmured in agreement.

"Wait a minute!" Ralph tried to explain.

"You know what I say?" The fighter asked. "I say good riddance to to that viral waste of megabytes! I'm glad he was deleted!"

Vanellope's heart was shattered at this program's words. She hugged Ralph's leg and sobbed, crushed that anyone would say that about Flash. Sonic, Tails, Felix, and Ralph were shocked by his hurtful words. Flash gave his life to save the arcade and everyone still looks down at him as a glitch and a virus. The entire station was silent, except for Vanellope's crying.

"How...dare...you..." Nega mumbled with his fist trembling in rage. "H0₩..._DARE_ Y0u!" He roared, his voice distorted by his glitch, as a mix of white and purple pixels passed through him like a tidal wave.

The character flinched by Nega's response. Nega stepped forward, glitching wildly.

"DoN'+...y0u..._DaRe_...ta1K ab0ut Flash +hat way." He growled in the character's face, his aggressive programming taking over as he glitched and glitched. The fighter inched backwards, shocked by the supposed glitchy character in front of him.

"Y-You're...a-a..." The character stuttered, pointing at Nega.

"A gLit¢H? No. ANd Flash wAsn'T 0ne eIther, nor was hE a v1ru$."

Nega looked up and turned towards all the characters in the arcade while his glitching calmed down.

"You all $hould bE ashamed of y0urselves. Most of y0u think so highly of yourselves just because you have a perfect code. Flash didn't have that. And what? Other characters with incomplete or glitchy programming are just there for you to treat like dirt because they're unplayable? How is that fair?" Nega preached.

Some characters just glanced down at the glossy floor, sort of knowing that Nega was right.

"Look at Vanellope." He continued. "She was a glitch before she found out that she was the main character of her game and after she did, she still wanted to glitch. And many of you are friends with her. The very first day Flash became active, one year ago yesterday, once you saw who he was, you yelled at him, called him names, and threw trash at him, and he never left his game since, until just yesterday. You left him scared and sad. I know. I know this very clearly because, though he didn't know it, I was there with him, dormant in his code, watching through his eyes. And you know what? I'm just the same as Flash. My code was messed up by the same virus. He stole my model, posed as me and later corrupted my model. You wanna see what a virus looks like?"

Purple pixels bubbled through Nega as he flickered into his original model, which then slowly transformed into the destroyed virus's corrupted form. Everyone in the station gasped in shock.

"Y0u w0u1d nEVeR bE aB1e t0 s+aNd up to A v1rUs thi$ p0weRful..."

Nega reverted back to Flash's backstory model.

"...but Flash did. He gave everything he had to rid the arcade of the virus, even his own life. That is the only reason why all of you are still here, standing where you are right now. And what do you do? You continue to treat him like nothing. Sure. You might feel sorry for him now, but it's too late to apologize now... 'cause Flash is gone. But what do you care, right?"

Nega started walking over to the portal to Sonic the Hedgehog.

"Come on, guys. Let's go." He said to the others, who began to follow.

The station was quiet. No one talked or even whispered. The group was about to enter the portal when...

"Wait!" Called a low, growly voice.

Making his way through the crowd toward the group was Bowser.

"Bowser?" Ralph asked, surprised. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to say that...I'm sorry. I-I was the first person to yell at Flash and I never meant to hurt him in any way. I'm to blame for the whole mess and I really am sorry."

"...Thanks, Lizardbrain." Vanellope sniffed. "I'm sure Flash would've appreciated it."

The six continued into the portal, boarding the tram and riding into the game.


	22. Chapter 22: Hard Reset

The tram made its stop in the Green Hill station and everyone got off.

"We better get to Tropical Resort, guys." Tails said.

As they started to make their way to the space elevator, the glint of something caught Sonic's eyes.

"Ow!" Sonic exclaimed, shielding his eyes from the sudden brightness.

"What's the matter, Sonic?" Felix asked.

"Something just flashed sunlight in my eyes."

Sonic saw that the shining object was just a few feet away from them. He walked closer and saw that the thing that was shining sunlight in his direction was a glowing blue orb. Sonic picked it up and inspected it.

"Hey! Isn't this...?"

"It's your missing code, Sonic!" Vanellope informed.

"How did it get here?" Nega asked.

"I don't know, but it looks fine. I wonder if I can..."

The orb began to shine and it dissipated into blue binary, surrounding Sonic. A wave of pixels rolled through Sonic's frame and the binary instantly reintegrated itself into Sonic's code. With a short spark, Sonic's pixels were reassembled and his code was complete.

"Sonic? How do you feel?" Tails asked.

"I...feel..._AWESOME_!"

Sonic took off and zipped around, zig-zagging and bouncing around before stopping in the same place.

"My code doesn't ache anymore. I think I'm good to go tomorrow."

"That's great, Sonic! Now we're not gonna get unplugged!" Tails cheered.

Ralph thought a moment, looking down at Flash before an idea struck him.

"Guys, do you think that Flash's code that the virus took could be here in the game too?"

"You might be onto something, Ralph." Sonic said. He paced back and forth for a moment. "Maybe his code is in his room. If we can find it, we can probably bring Flash back."

Vanellope perked up at the sound of this.

"Then what are we waiting for!? Move your molasses, guys!" She urged.

Everyone wasted no time in reaching the elevator and reaching the Tropical Resort, with its bright lights and colors. Venturing past the neon signs, rides, and hotel rooms, they all reached Flash's room. Entering through the door with the Cyan Lazer insignia, they find the room as it always was, with its Chao In Space posters and its shelves filled with knick-knacks, except one thing was different

"There it is!" Felix pointed out.

Sitting on Flash's bed was an orb glowing many colors and inside, the insignias of all the color powers faded in and out. Vanellope padded over to the bed and picked it up. Ralph laid Flash on his bed and Vanellope placed his code in his hand.

"I'll check Flash's code to make sure it'll work. Open the code room, please." Felix asked.

Tails inputted the combination for the controller lock and the door opened, revealing the code. Felix hopped out into the antigravity space and found Flash's code, which was cold and dark, beaten up with cracks all over and shut down, disconnected from the network.

"Ready!" Felix announced.

Vanellope tapped on the orb and it started to shine. Like Sonic's, it dispersed into multicolored binary and circled above Flash. Flash flickered and sparked, breaking apart into cyan pixels and his binary rewrote itself into his code. Static flowed through him and his pixels reassembled, leaving only him. The binary within his wireframe began to wander within him with a faint cyan glow. Vanellope stood at his bedside.

"Flash?" She spoke gently.

No response. Not a sound or twitch.

"Felix, what does it look like in there?" Ralph called.

"Nothing happened. His code is still shut off." He answered.

Suddenly, a cyan spark was shot from Flash's code. A faint glow flickered from the code and sparks of other colors followed.

"Hey! His code is working!"

Felix tapped the code twice and opened a window to view the code. Scrolling through, he found that large portions of the code were blank or torn up, severely damaged. The only parts of the code completely intact was the color power programming and his source code.

"Oh my land."

Felix thought for a second, then turned towards the exit of the room to explain the current situation.

"How does it look, Felix?" Sonic asked.

"Will Flash be okay?" Vanellope asked.

"Well, to put it simply, with the way Flash's code is right now, he will never wake up."

"Wh-WhA+?" Vanellope said, shocked as blue static rolled through her.

"Hold on, Vanny, there still might be a way. Right now, Flash won't wake up because most of his code is gone or damaged beyond repair. But, his source code is complete, along with his powers. If I give his code a hard reset, his source code can reintegrate his original code."

"Then why not do it?" Ralph asked.

"Well...I...can't guarantee that Flash will be back to normal. He might have a different personality, his code might still hurt him if it remains incomplete, or...nothing at all might happen."

Vanellope glanced down at the ground, thinking about what might happen if Flash is reset. Will he still want to be friends with her? Will he even like her? Will he come back at all? She looked at his still lifeless frame, then turned back toward Felix

"Do it." She said

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Getting Flash back on his feet is better than no Flash at all."

"Alright...Fingers crossed." Felix said, jumping back into the code room toward Flash's code.

When he reached the code, he scrolled through his options until he found the hard reset option. He pressed it and a window came up that asked "Are you sure you want to reset?" Felix selected "Yes" and then the code immediately shut down. Flash's frame sparked cyan and binary began to cover him until he was completely shielded in a cyan binary barrier. His code powered on and the cracks in it were beginning to mend themselves until they all disappeared. New green data wires appeared, connecting Flash's code with the rest of the game. The code opened a window, showing that it was rebooting. The barrier that surrounded Flash began to fade, revealing that his frame had healed. The cracks and gaps had disappeared. Flash's code finished rebooting and the window closed. Felix doubled tapped the code to check if it was working properly.

"Hmm...Everything looks like it's in place. It looks like Flash could wake up at anytime." Felix happily declared.

Vanellope glitched in glee and stood by Flash, waiting for him to be up on his feet. She hoped that everything will be just as it was before. No incomplete codes, no viruses, no bullies. Just them and their friends with absolutely no worries.

"Flash? Can you hear me?" She said softly.

Flash's ear twitched. Vanellope gasped in excitement. He stirred for a moment before opening his eyes and sitting himself up on his bed, turning his head toward the others. He smiled.

* * *

**A/N: Hey guys! I think the next chapter will be the final one. Just to let you know, the story is going to split into two separate directions. Think of it as the timeline splitting. One timeline is where Flash is completely back to normal. In this timeline, I'm going to be starting a new series of one-shots about Flash and friends in normal life at the arcade. The second timeline is going to be sort of a sequel to ProjectFlash. In this timeline, something goes wrong during Flash's hard reset. So review and tell me about what you think about this direction I'm going and I'll see you next chapter.**


	23. Chapter 23: New Character Unlocked!

Flash sat up in his bed, looking at the others, who stared back in amazement. Flash was now awake after his code shut down from excessive damage. He smiled and broke the silence.

"Hi, guys." He said, giving a small wave.

"Flash!" cried an extremely happy voice.

Vanellope immediately pounced on Flash, embracing him tightly.

"Whoa! Hi, Vanny." He hoarsely greeted, since his breath was short after Vanellope threw herself at him.

Breaking the hug, Vanellope gave Flash a light punch on the shoulder.

"Don't ever scare me like that again!" She pouted. Flash chuckled as he got up out of bed. Sonic and Tails joined in, starting a group hug.

"Aww. Come on, guys. You're embarrassing me." Flash said as he blushed.

"We thought we lost you, Flash." Tails said.

Felix exited the code room back into the bedroom and he and Ralph joined in the hug. Nega stood at the doorway, rubbing his arm, feeling a bit awkward and left out.

"Should I?" He thought to himself. "He is my little brother, after all. But I'm the person he was afraid of turning into."

"Hey Nega. You gonna join us?" Ralph asked.

Nega hesitated a moment, but then tossed his inhibition aside and joined the group hug. The family was finally whole,with Ralph, Felix, Vanellope, Sonic, Tails, Flash with his code complete and with Nega as a new member. Flash glanced up to a clock on the wall of his room and it read "7:00 AM".

"Hey guys. The arcade is gonna open in two hours. You'd better get ready." He said, breaking the hug.

"And what about you?" Felix asked.

"What about me?"

"Don't you see, Flash?" Vanellope said. "Your code is all patched up. You can be playable."

The realization hit Flash like an Orange Rocket taking off in his heart.

"...M-Me...playable?"

"Absolutely, but we'll have a bit of work to do in the code." Felix said.

Flash paused a moment, taking in the news, and then a big smile curved along his mouth.

LAZER!

Flash transformed and bounced around off the walls and ceiling at the speed of light before blasting out the door. The others followed.

BURST! ROCKET!

Flash took off into the star-filled sky of the resort and released an explosion of fireworks, brightening the entire resort.

"WOO-HOO!" He whooped

"GO FLASH!" Vanellope cheered and laughed along with him.

Flash finally landed and grabbed Vanellope by the hand, swinging her around and tossing her up into the air and catching her.

"I can't believe that I'm finally going to be a playable character!" Flash giddily said. His model spazzed into cyan pixels and he teleported a few feet away. "I mean, I have hoped for this day to come for so long..." Again he teleported while rambling.

The others were surprised. Flash could still glitch even though his code was complete.

"Flash." Vanellope called while grabbing his hand, calming him down. "You're still glitching. We thought that we fixed your code."

"Hey. Come on. My code was always incomplete. Ever since the virus attacked me and Nega, a tiny bit of my code was permanently deleted by him. But that doesn't mean I can't do what I do."

Flash shot a few lasers into the sky, each of them doing absolutely no damage to him.

"See? Plus I can glitch, meaning..." Flash glitched behind her. "I can be here..." He glitched next to Nega, leaning on his shoulder. "...Or here..." He finally glitched back where he was. "And back here in the blink of an eye. Enemies won't be able to touch me. I'm not giving that up."

Vanellope chuckled. "Just like me."

"Come on. Time's a'wastin'. Felix, fire up the code. We've got some work to do." Flash said.

"Right away, Flash." Felix cheerfully responded.

"Okay, Nega, you know the most about how we were programmed before...you know...so you'll tell us everything you know. Sonic, you'll help with..."

* * *

Mr. Litwak was running a few checks around the arcade before opening time. It was a Saturday morning so the today would the busiest day of the week. Kids were waiting outside eagerly to come in and play. Litwak chuckled.

"Alright. Alright. Time to open." He unlocked the glass door and made way for the excited kids. "Welcome, kids! Come on in."

The arcade was soon flooded with kids and teens, racing to the game of their choice to play first.

* * *

Flash was pacing around in a small cyan room. He was waiting for the gamers to come by the game and finally choose him to be played as. Despite the fact that this was the day he was waiting for since he was active, he can't help but feel a bit uneasy.

"Okay...okay. Stay calm. Deep breaths." He said to himself.

"_Still excited?_" Asked a voice in Flash's head.

"Terrified." Flash answered. "What if the gamers hate me? What if they think I'm a broken character?"

"_Hey. Hey. Don't worry. The gamers are going to love you._"

"Easy for you to say, Nega. You're not the one being played as. You're a boss character."

"Keep it down, Flash. Get ready. Someone's coming." Sonic called from another room.

* * *

A young blonde girl, about twelve years old, wearing pink rimmed glasses and a pink headband, was approaching the Sonic the Hedgehog game. The screen of the game caught her attention, which read "New Character Story Unlocked!"

"Nice!" She said. "Mr. Litwak probably updated the game."

She popped a quarter in the game and was lead to the game selection screen. The first game that was on the screen was Sonic Colors. The girl selected it and came to the title screen for Sonic Colors. She pressed start and two story options appeared: Sonic's Story and a new character, Flash's Story. Wanting to see the new character, the girl chose Flash's Story. The screen faded to black and a cutscene began.

* * *

The scene began with a view of the space elevator to Eggman's Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park, with one of the cabins rising toward the park.

"_Hi. My name is Flash the Hedgehog. I'm just a regular everyday guy that you've probably never heard of. That is until what happened at the amusement park._"

The scene showed a white furred hedgehog with crystal blue eyes in the rising cabin. It then transitioned to a view of the Tropical Resort.

"_I was walking through the park when I saw some small creatures called Wisps being chased by a horde of robots. I tried to rescue them, but I ended up getting captured like they were._"

The hedgehog met some alien creatures being pursued by Egg Pawns. He sprang into action and attacked some of the robots and destroyed them, but their were many others to replace them. The hedgehog was grabbed by the robots and dragged away along with the aliens.

"_The robots dragged us, along with thousands of other Wisps, off to some sort of energy plant on one of the planets orbiting the park. They placed us on a conveyor belt into some sort of converter. I tried to break the glass of the container we were in, but it was too strong._"

The captured hedgehog was taken to the Asteroid Coaster, where he and the aliens were placed in a glass container on suspended conveyor belt on the way to an energy-siphoning machine.

"_The aliens and I were sent into the machine and then things took a bad turn._"

A computerized voice sounded from within the plant.

"**WARNING! WARNING! FOREIGN OBJECT WITHIN CHAMBER! MELTDOWN IMMINENT**!"

"_A cyan alien suddenly phased into my body and the weirdest thing happened._"

LAZER!

The hedgehog's white fur turned into bright cyan and his blue eyes turned into golden amber. He then transformed into a cyan laser that sped around in the container, bouncing off the walls with such intensity that the container cracked and he broke free, heading toward the Tropical Resort as a beam of light.

"Hey! He's the guy who was running around with Sonic at random times in other stages!" The girl noticed, recognizing his appearance from playing countless times before.

The scene ended and the first level began loading.

* * *

Tropical Resort: Act 1

Flash landed at the entrance to the resort and control was given to the girl.

"Awesome!" She stated.

Another arcade-goer was passing by when he saw the new character in the game.

"Cool! New character!" He said, standing by the girl to watch.

The girl made Flash run forward and after a few meters in the game, she ran into a hint ring.

"_If I'm not boosting, I'll slowly generate boost energy. Save up that energy and let loose for a burst of speed!_" Flash's voice said.

The HUD showed that the boost gauge was filling with energy by itself. The girl waited for the gauge to fill completely and then made Flash boost forward, now running at an incredible speed. A spring to a higher platform came into view and Flash jumped onto it and sprang up to the platform, where three Egg Pawns stood, waving neon signs. The player made Flash boost through the robots and then came a chain of spinners and another pawn. She made Flash homing attack on the chain, which, instead of making Flash curl up into a ball and ram into the robots, made Flash glitch to the robot that was aimed with the reticle and shoot a laser from his palm to destroy it. After getting through the chain, Flash got onto a rail and began grinding to the next area. As Flash was grinding, the Cyan Lazer insignia appeared in the storage space next to the boost gauge. At the end of the rail was another hint ring that Flash passed through.

"_Over time, I'll generate enough energy to use the Cyan Lazer without needing to absorb a wisp. Press the color power button to activate it._"

"That's so cool!" The girl said out loud.

Some other gamers saw the action that was taking place at the Sonic the Hedgehog game and stopped by to watch.

Flash ran up close to a horde of robots and the girl activated Flash's power.

"_Here we go!_" Flash thought.

LAZER!

Flash transformed into a cyan laser and mowed through the robots at the speed of light.

"WOW!" Shouted all the gamers watching.

He sped onto a ramp and launched himself into the next area. For the rest of the stage, the player sped around the resort, used Flash's powers as soon as they were available and used Flash's glitch and palm laser to attack robots. Soon, the act ended with Flash destroying the wisp capsule at the end of the course. Flash looked at his score being tallied up and was surprised to see that it was an S rank. Flash, in his excitement, bounced around the screen as a laser before returning to normal and giving the player a peace sign. The girl gave him a peace sign back.

"Wow! This new character is awesome!" Said one of the gamers watching. "I got next game!" He said, putting a quarter on the game cabinet.

"I'm going after him!" Said another, doing the same.

The gamers began to excitedly chatter and talk about the new addition to the Sonic game, impatiently waiting for a turn to play as Flash the Hedgehog.

"_They...like me. The gamers really like me!_" Flash thought to himself.

"_Was there ever any doubt?_" Nega said.

Flash couldn't believe it. He was finally where he was meant to be after so long. He was a real character and even better was that he had friends to share it with. Sonic, Tails, Felix, Ralph, Vanellope, and Nega.

"_Nothing could be better than this._" Flash thought.

**_THE END_**

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to everyone for reading ProjectFlash. I really appreciate that so many of you liked it. I will be following up with a series of one-shots illustrating Flash's new life as well as the lives of other characters. Not every story will be centered on him and if any of you guys have suggestions for a short story, PM me and I'll see if I can work with it. I'll give credit for story ideas and any OC's used if it becomes necessary. After I don't know how long, I'll be starting the alternate timeline sequel to ProjectFlash. Once I figure out the path I'm taking with this story, I'll start writing. In the meantime, leave a review and tell me what you thought about the story. Until next time. ****_Ciao!_**


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